Transcendental Nectar of Satsanga

ramadi murtinu kala-niyamena tisthan nanavataram akarod bhuvanenu kintu kanna
svayam samabhavat parama puman yo govindam adi-purunam tam aham bhajami [Bs. 5.39]

 

This is a verse from Brahma-samhita in which the incarnation of Lord Ramacandra is described. Ramadi. Not only Rama, but there are many other, innumerable incarnations. They are compared with the waves of a river. As the waves of the river or the waves of the ocean cannot be counted, similarly, how many incarnations are there of the Supreme Lord it is not possible to count. But out of them, the principal names are mentioned in the sastras. Therefore it is said ramadi. Ramadi means Rama and also other, many incarnations. And they are existing. Not that one incarnation appeared and it is finished. No. Not like that. Just like Lord Ramacandra appeared on this planet, say millions of years before. He appeared in the Treta-yuga. Treta-yuga means… We have passed only five thousand years of this age, Kali-yuga. Before that, there was Dvapara-yuga. Dvapara-yuga means 800,000 years. And before that, there was Treta-yuga, which continued for twelve hundred thousands of years. That means at least two million years before Lord Ramacandra appeared on this planet.

 

So now Lord Ramacandra appeared in Ayodhya. There is a place in Ayodhya, in northern India. There He appeared. As Kanna appeared in Mathura… That is also northern India. And Mathura is about ninety miles down southward from New Delhi. You have heard the name of New Delhi, the capital of India. So Ayodhya is also situated about five hundred miles northeast of New Delhi. So Lord Ramacandra appeared on this day. Today is called Sri Rama Naumi. On the ninth day of the moon Lord Ramacandra appeared. His father was the king of Ayodhya, and he had three wives. So out of… No. He had two wives. So out of two wives he got four sons. Ramacandra is the eldest son. The life and activities of Lord Ramacandra is… [break] …in a book which is called Ramayana. You have heard the name of Ramayana. Ramayana is also accepted as history. Vedic literatures are histories also. The Puranas, the Srimad-Bhagavatam, Mahabharata, and Ramayana, they are counted amongst the history. The history of Ramacandra is that His father wanted to retire. Dasaratha, Maharaja Dasaratha. And he decided to enthrone Lord Ramacandra and retire. So everything was settled, but just one day before, his youngest wife turned the whole thing into different way. Sometimes Maharaja Dasaratha was suffering from what is called whitlow, some trouble in the finger? And this queen served him very nicely, and he was pleased. And he said, My dear Sarmin ha, if you want some benediction from me, I can give you. And she replied that I shall ask you for the benediction when I require it. Not now. So just one day before Lord Ramacandra’s coronation, she approached her husband Maharaja Dasaratha and reminded him, My dear husband, you promised to give me some benediction, and I told you that I shall ask you when I require it. Maharaja Dasaratha said, Yes, I remember. You want some benediction just now? She said, Yes. And what is that? She said that Ramacandra cannot be seated on the throne. My son should be coronated, Bharata. He was surprised. It is a big demand. So he said, All right. That will be done. Your son. Because formerly, the kings… Not only formerly, even up to date, there are many ksatriya kings in India. They have more than one wife. And they are, naturally, there is rivalry between different wives. So the same thing. Human psychology is the same. Even two million years ago the same mentality was there, and she asked that My son should be the king, not Ramacandra. Ramacandra happened to be the son of Kausalya, the elder queen.

 

So Maharaja Dasaratha agreed and called for Ramacandra. My dear boy, your… She asked also that… She was very diplomatic. She wanted that Ramacandra go to forest for fourteen years. The idea was political, that The king may agree to install my son just now. Now, after a few days, this Ramacandra may come with His army, and there may be some difficulty to continue the kingdom. So she wanted that Ramacandra should go to the forest and He should not come back till the end of fourteen years from this day. So Maharaja Dasaratha agreed. Because he was ksatriya. Just see the promise. A ksatriya never goes back from the promise, never refuses any challenge. If a ksatriya is challenged by somebody, that I want to fight with you, oh, he cannot refuse. This is ksatriya spirit. He cannot say that I am now busy. Suppose somebody comes to you, that I want to fight with you. You may say, What nonsense fight? I have no time. We are in the temple. But a ksatriya cannot deny that. A ksatriya at once must accept. Oh, yes. Come on. And the weapon should be, if he has no sword or weapon, he should be supplied weapon and fight. This is ksatriya spirit. They were highly charitable and chivalrous and keeping promise and with a great tendency for ruling over. They shall rule over. Administrators. Their business is…

 

There are different prescription for different classes of men for their livelihood. The brahmanas, they can pull on their livelihood by six ways. Pa hana pa hana yajana yajana dana pratigraha. Six. And they must be qualified with twelve high qualities. We have many times discussed. Out of that qualification, truthfulness is the first item for a brahmana. A ksatriya may speak lies. That is allowed, because he has to be diplomat, politician. But a brahmana, oh, he’s not allowed to speak lie. This is the system, caste system or varnasrama system. Everyone was trained. Because these four classes of men are required in a society. For proper upkeep of society, one class of men must be very intelligent, highly qualified, with all good qualities. They must be trained in that way, ideal character so that people can see and follow them. Therefore brahmanas were taken to so much respect because they’re ideal character, learned, and godly, knows the science, spiritual science. Therefore they’re held in high estimation and topmost of the society. The next, the administrator, administrative class, ksatriyas. They are trained how to kill. The ksatriyas were allowed to hunt in the forest to learn the art of killing because that was necessity for the ksatriyas. Knatriya, if he… If the king, if he finds somebody is doing wrong, he can immediately chop off his head if he likes. The king was so powerful. And it is not that if there was some war, it is not that the president or the king shall sit down comfortably at home and ordinary soldiers will go and lay down their life. No. Formerly, the king or the head of the state, he should first of all go there in the fight. You see in the picture, the chief men of the fighting in the Kuruknetra, both sides, they were arrayed, this side, that side, with their chariot.

 

Not that the head man, the chief man, or the commander is taking shelter back side, protecting himself, and poor soldiers are (chuckles) thrown into the fighting. No. These were ksatriya spirit. And it is necessary that a class of men should be trained up in that way, ksatriya, fighting men. In India, because this training was there since a very long time, so there is no difficulty in recruiting soldiers there. There is a class of men, they are very much forward in fighting still. They are called… Just like the Gurkhas, the Nepalese. You have heard the name of Nepal. Still a small state, independent state. They are not within India. Between China and India. The whole Nepal population, they are ksatriyas. Oh, they are very good fighters. Similarly, the Sikhs, the Jatas. There are classes. So they’re always forward for fighting. And you’ll be surprised that the British Empire was voluntarily liquidated because they lost India. The Britishers, they understood that because we are now losing India, there is no more possibility to keep our eastern empire. Therefore they liquidated. Why? Actually, the whole British Empire were being administered or managed by Indian soldiers, these Sikhs and Gurkhas. They extended their empire. After taking their position with India, they extended British Empire in the Middle East and Far East simply by these Sikhs and Gurkha soldiers. They got supremacy on the Burma and everywhere.

 

So there is necessity of a class of fighting men. You are finding in your country difficulty in recruiting because the recruiting process is wrong. You are recruiting from persons… You are training persons just like sudras, and you want them to fight. How they can fight? It is not possible. So as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gita, that catur-varnyam maya san am guna karma vibhagasa … [Bg. 4.13]. Lord Kanna said that The four classes or orders of the society, brahmana, ksatriya, vaisya, sudra, is planned by Me according to work and quality. So this ksatriya quality men is also required, the brahmana quality of men is also required, the mercantile community, they are also required, and the laborer class, they are also required. Of course, laborer class, they do not require any training. Laborer class means one who cannot do anything, neither become brahmana, nor become ksatriya, nor become vaisya. That means the last balance of the population, they are called laborer class, sudra. Sudra means one who has no training. Sudra has no samskara. Samskara means training. Everyone is accepted as sudra by birth. Janmana jayate sudra. Janmana means by birth. By birth, everyone is born a sudra, a fourth-class man. It is to be accepted, and actually so. Just like a child, innocent child, what does he know? He has to be trained. Either you train him as a brahmana or train him as a ksatriya or train him as a vaisya. Or otherwise, he is sudra already, born sudra. Sudra has no training. Everyone, the basic principle, basic foreground, everyone, it is accepted sudra. Now, if you train him as a brahmana, then he becomes a brahmana. If you train him as a ksatriya, then he becomes a ksatriya. If you train him as a vaisya… So I think this is, this system is very scientific so that if you want help of a really intelligent man or God realized man, it is ready, the brahmana class. Just like if you require the help of a lawyer, we have got so many lawyers. If you require the help of medical man… Because there are trained men. Similarly, the society requires to train a certain class of men to become brahmanas.

 

Just like we are training the Kanna conscious. The Kanna consciousness is meant for the brahmanas. They are not meant for fighting because they are not being trained for fighting. They have been trained for becoming brahmanas. Who is brahmana? Brahma janati iti brahmana. The four divisions are described like this. Janmana jayate sudra , everyone is born sudra. That is accepted. Samskarad bhaved dvija . Now if you train him, never mind in which family he’s born, you have to train him. Just like boys are sent to school for being trained. So everyone is accepted as sudra, but you now train him. He goes to the guru-gaha. Guru-gaha means teacher’s house. Formerly, for being trained, there was no such big scale school and colleges. Every village… Still, fifty years before in India, in every village there was a small school conducted by the brahmana, and the village children would be trained up there. So he was sent for training. And there was no school fee. The boys will go there, and on behalf of the teacher or spiritual master, they will go, brahmacari, door to door, and beg and bring forth alms, rice, dahl, grains, and everything. That was the system. There was no school fee. There was no problem how to send a boy to the school. Samskara. Now he’s trained up. The teacher sees the psychology of the boy, in which way he should be trained. Either he should be trained as a vaisya or he should be trained as a ksatriya. So everyone was trained like that, but generally, the son of a ksatriya… Just like Maharaja Ramacandra or Arjuna, from the very beginning they were trained as ksatriya. Naturally, if somebody is the son of a medical man his father trains him to become a medical man in future. That is the natural tendency. If the boy is different altogether that is another question, but naturally, that is the tendency. So a ksatriya’s son was trained as ksatriya. A brahmana’s son was trained as a brahmana and a vaisya’s son was trained as a vaisya, and sudra had no training. So gradually this became a caste system. Brahmana’s son became brahmana. Because formerly, the training was there. But when it is vitiated, although a person born in the family of a brahmana, he is doing the work of a sudra. So according to Vedic scripture, one is classified according to his work and quality, not by birth. That is the classification of sastra. Just like in the Bhagavad-gita the Lord says catur-varnyam maya san am guna-karma-vibhagasa [Bg. 4.13]. Guna means quality and karma means work. One must be qualified for the work and he must actually work. Then he is counted classified into that, I mean to say, category.

 

Just like if you are simply trained or educated as a lawyer, and if you are not practicing in the court, nobody comes to you to consult as a lawyer. Nobody cares for you. You must be practicing also. Similarly, to become a brahmana means first of all, he must know what is Brahman and he must be actually situated in the activities of Brahman. So devotional service are activities of Brahman. Activities in Kanna consciousness means activities in Brahman. Brahme carati iti brahma brahmacari. Carati means acts. Actually, he acts in life, applies the principles of brahmana in his life, he is called brahmacari. So these were the trainings. So just see how the training was, that a ksatriya cannot refuse his promise. So Maharaja Dasaratha, he fulfilled the promise of his youngest wife and asked his son, eldest son Ramacandra, My dear boy, You’ll have to go to forest for fourteen years. That is the desire of Your youngest mother. And I promised that I shall fulfill her promise, uh, request. So please accept. Ramacandra said, Yes father, I am ready. Just see. This is the quality. Out of the six opulences of God, this is one quality.