“And all this is due to the chemical composition of the speaker’s con sciousness," I volunteered, as I thought I knew which direction Vimalanan da’s discourse was heading
He nodded his assent. “And this chemical composition determines what sort of sadhana is appropriate for you, what you can succeed at. There is no lack of people today who claim to have located the keys to the Vedas, and who claim that they are living a ‘Vedic’ life, and teaching their disciples ‘Vedic’ sadhanas. Most of them are gasbagging; they are talking out of their wits. Think, for a moment, about the caste system. India has been plagued by casteism for centuries, but the caste system started out as something quite different from what it has become.
“The Vedic literature talks of the body of society in this way: the Brahma nas or priestly class are the head, the Kshatriyas or ruling class the arms and chest, the Vaishyas or merchant class the abdomen, and the Shudras or laborers the feet. Some imperialist Brahmanas have used this description to justify their domination of everyone else, but the only reason for this classi fication was to illustrate the innate tendencies of each group.
“Suppose you want to teach a mantra to a ‘child.’ If the ‘child’ is a Brah mana he or she will use the mantra to gain knowledge; the head represents knowledge. A true Brahmana will use this knowledge for self-realization and
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to assist others to realize. Any Brahmana who uses knowledge to control others is a false Brahmana. ‘Brahmam janati iti Brahmanah’ (a Brahmana is he who knows the Absolute Reality), so how many true Brahmanas do we have today? Almost none!
“If you teach a mantra to a Kshatriya you can be sure that he will go out and use it. This is what the chest and arms are for, to do things. And because Kshatriyas are natural rulers they will tend to use the power they gain from austerities to conquer others. Kshatriyas can go much, much far ther with penance than Brahmanas can because Kshatriyas have a natural immunity to pain, and an innate belief in ‘kill or be killed’; succeed or die. Once a Kshatriya starts something either he will finish it or it will finish him. A Brahmana often tries to do ten things at once, motivated by intellectual curiosity. A Kshatriya does only one, but does a thorough job of that one.
“King Vishwamitra was easily defeated by the Rishi Vasistha’s spiritual power when Vishwamitra and his army tried to steal Nandini, the wish-ful filling cow, from Vasistha. This defeat made Vishwamitra realize that physi cal might was infinitely inferior to spiritual prowess, and he decided to perform austerities until Vasistha himself acknowledged him as a Brahmarshi (a ‘god among Rishis’). Once he decided upon this course of action he for got everything else, and concentrated on it alone.
“Vishwamitra performed terrific austerities, and was awarded various divine titles by various divine beings, but not the title he wanted. Eventually he decided to force Vasistha to give him what he wanted; he was born a king, after all, and kings are accustomed to getting what they want. Vishwa mitra harried Vasistha mercilessly, but nothing seemed to affect Vasistha, not even the death of all of his many sons. Finally Vishwamitra became totally desperate, and crept up in the underbrush near Vasistha’s ashram, holding a sharp knife with which to murder the Rishi who would not acknowledge his accomplishments. Just as he was getting ready to strike he heard Vasistha say to his wife Arundhati, ‘Of all the Rishis today only one deserves the title of Brahmarshi, and that is Vishwamitra. I don’t know why he is so much against me; how have I offended him?’
“When he heard these words Vishwamitra dropped his knife and ran to bow at Vasistha’s feet, saying, ‘Please forgive me.’ Vasistha murmured, ‘But, Brahmarshi, there is no need for forgiveness. I am honored at your visit.’ And he blessed him. It was all Vasistha’s play, after all; the play of the Rishis is something that is very difficult to fathom.
“A real Brahmana is too refined to be the kind of monomaniac that Vish wamitra became–but then, Vishwamitra achieved towering heights
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because of his one-pointed determination. Brahmanas are not better than Kshatriyas, nor Kshatriyas better than Brahmanas; they are different, that’s all. A good Brahmana tends to develop Kshatriya fearlessness, and a good Kashtriya, as he accumulates knowledge, should become more like a Brah mana. A good king is never a good fighter; it is impossible. To fight, one must be willing to kill, and killing always introduces crudeness into your nature. A good king is always absolutely refined and sophisticated, and such people are absolutely no good on the battlefield.
“Anyone who is a Vaishya, a merchant by nature, will commercialize the knowledge he or she is given; he will sell it to fill his belly. Look at what is happening in America. Almost all Americans are born business people, and they have merchandized whatever jnana they have received. It is part of their nature. And Shudras? Shudras are people who slog. It is important to know all this, and to know how to recognize these classes of people. If you teach a mantra to a ‘child’ and he or she misuses it, part of the bad karma comes onto you, because you taught it, enabling him or her to abuse it thereby.”
“You say that this business of caste depends on your own inherent nature. What about this business that you have to stay in the caste you are born in?”
“This is a more recent addition. Every human has a physical and a mental heredity. Your physical heredity is the inheritance of all your ancestors. If your forefathers have been warriors for the past several generations the genes which produce aggression will be reinforced in you, and you will most likely make good warrior material. This was the basis for the old caste system.
“Originally the caste system was not rigid; you could do whatever you liked with your life. But if you were born into a family whose traditional occupation had been business for many generations it is probable that the genes controlling the skills needed to do business would have been rein forced through each successive generation, and you would naturally take to business, like a fish takes to water. It would literally be ‘in your blood,’ in each cell, in your genes and chromosomes.
“Darwin understood a little bit about heredity, but he applied it too exclu sively to physical characteristics. In fact, the principle of natural selection applies to society as well. If you are a businessman and you have three chil dren, you will most likely leave the family concern to the child who shows the greatest aptitude for the business. And if this happens for fifteen or twenty or thirty generations in a row, the business genes will become stronger and stron ger as a result of this ‘natural selection.’ This is what happened for centuries in my own family; we have been businessmen for more than fifteen generations.
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“Because the Rishis understood all about genetics they inaugurated the gotra system. Each Rishi had a different field of expertise, and could manip ulate the genes and chromosomes of his disciples to make them fit to receive the knowledge he wanted to pass down. Each disciple would get a different piece of knowledge. Because this genetic pattern would be passed from generation to generation, the children born into that family would develop tendencies which would make it easy for them to succeed in mas tering that branch of the Veda which the Rishi had assigned the family.
“Suppose you want to use the Vedas for your own personal sadhana. First you must know your gotra, so you can know which branch of the Veda you should study. Then, you have to know the mantra and ritual which apply to your branch. But most people have forgotten this mantra and ritual, and so they wander around in the labyrinth, and fail to achieve. I know the truth of this; it happened to my own father. He was an authority on the four Vedas and their commentaries, but he did not know the mantra and ritual which are appropriate for our branch of the Veda. He did not even bother with the mantra for Bhrigu, the Rishi who began our gotra. He had his own guru and guru mantra, but if he had first achieved success with the mantra for Bhrigu Rishi, Bhrigu himself would have taken over and directed his entire progress from then on.
“This esoteric knowledge was never available to the masses, to whom gotras are important only in marriage negotiations. Marriages within gotras have always been forbidden, to prevent inbreeding; the Rishis understood eugenics long, long ago. But marriages within ‘castes’ were encouraged Brahmanas marrying Brahmanas, Shudras wedding Shudras, and so on–so that the parents would have a clear idea of what their children would be fit for, and the children would find it easy to fit into the roles which they were destined to play due to the weight of their inherited karmas.
“But we live in Kali Yuga now, when everything is jumbled up. If Western ers are by and large innovative and clever, it is partly because they are ‘mixed breeds”: Vietnamese marrying Swedes, Nigerians marrying Scots, and so on. This allows new patterns of genes to develop, which tend to promote new ways of looking at things. It also causes lots of uncertainties and difficulties for the children, whose new pattern of genes and chromosomes may attract a spirit who has little affinity for the parents who conceived it. This lack of mental affinity may lead to the break-up of the family, since they cannot see eye-to-eye on many subjects. A child who becomes estranged from the fam ily and who cannot find any other place to fit in may become delinquent, which then leads to the break-up of society. So the mixing up of genes has
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both good and bad effects.
“Different from your physical heredity is your mental heredity, which you carry with you from birth to birth. Your physical body represents your past, the karmas which you have performed whose fruits you are now reaping. Your subtle or astral body, which is your mind, is your present condition, and how you use your mind to act in the world determines your future. Every action produces karmas, and all these karmas are stored in your causal body where they wait patiently for the right moment to project into your mind. If you have been a musician for many births you will be drawn to music in this birth as well, even if you have to become the son of a farmer, because of the weight of your karmas. This is what happened to me: I had no interest in business at all, only in spirituality, because of my work in pre vious births.
“This explains why the caste system fails nowadays. Originally those spir its who had affinity for business would naturally gravitate to the wombs of businessmen’s families. Now stronger influences like the manubandhana between children and parents operate, which allow persons of differing ten dencies to enter the same family. If you are born into a farnily of priests and you had been a priest often in your previous births, no problem; but if you are a spiritual type born into a family of materialists, or an artist born into a family of butchers, there will be conflict.
“People are reborn with limitations because of the weight of their bad kar mas. Those who have accumulated good karmas get the opportunity to be reborn in a higher state. Any human who has more good karmas than bad will naturally be better able to shine out than someone who has more bad karmas than good. The Rishis never said that the lower classes of human were animals; they simply recognized that the animalistic nature is greater in those people who have more bad karmas. The Rishis always want every one to make progress according to their own innate capabilities, which is only possible when everyone recognizes their limitations,
“So when I talk about Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras, I don’t necessarily mean those terms to mean castes. The Rishis, who believed in ‘free love’ and were more like today’s hippies than like today’s bigoted Brahmanas, never believed in castes, and neither do I. When I talk about Brahmanas or Shudras I mean the innate tendencies of a particular individual, which are determined both by the parents and by the previous births. This is why I call your friend Freddy a Brahmana; his Brahmanical tendencies are much greater than those of most so-called Brahmanas! A human being is by nature either a priest, a ruler, a merchant or a laborer, and
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it is very hard to change this nature. We see the importance of pedigree every day at the racecourse; you can’t deny it. You cannot discount human heredity either, but you may be able to go beyond it.”
“By sadhana.”
“By sadhana, which is why having just the right sadhana is very impor tant. Now, can you explain to me the difference between ‘shuddha’ and ‘shudra?”
I was stumped there. “They differ only in one Sanskrit letter.”
“Yes, they do. Shuddha, which means pure, contains ‘dha,’ which is replaced by ‘ra’ in shudra. The Sanskrit letter dha’ indicates firmness, the power of concentration. Concentration creates purity. You are a chemist; isn’t that what chemistry is all about, purifying substances so that those substances may be used in concentration?”
“Yes, I guess so.” A good play on words.
***Ra,’ as you well know, is the Bija Mantra for Fire. In this case ‘ra’ stands for Jathara Agni, the fire of physical digestion. A Shudra is anyone who is concerned more with feeding his belly rather than his mind. All food except milk was once a living being, and even milk is extracted from a living being, We deprive other beings of life in order to preserve our own lives. Is this not extremely selfish? The willingness to kill and eat epitomizes this selfish desire to feed at another’s expense. This attitude alone is sufficient to dis qualify such a person from studying the Vedas, but there is another more practical reason: when Jathara Agni is strong Bhuta Agni is weak, and Bhuta Agni is essential for spiritual progress.
“Everyone whose Jathara Agni is stronger than their Bhuta Agni is a Shudra, and such people are not fit to recite the Vedas because of the effect of Fire on what they speak. This is why I have told you and Freddy not to recite Vedic mantras. Eventually, if your Bhuta Agni becomes very strong, this will no longer be a problem. But for right now, remember that the effect of Fire on bindu and anusvara is always ‘r + na = rna,’ karmic debt. When the Fire Element in your body acts predominantly on food it becomes impure, and in that condition reciting powerful mantras will only add to your karmic debts.”
“Shudras and mlecchas are different, right?”
“Correct. Shudras are not mlecchas. A Shudra lives a life of toil, bringing things to life and then killing them for profit, but still follows a sadhana and retains faith in Nature. Shudras are part of the Vedic system, but mlecchas are totally outside the pale of the Vedas. A mleccha is, by definition, anyone who loves filth, anyone who loves meat, alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling and
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other indulgent intoxications and has few redeeming qualities. Some big oted Indians call all Westerners mlecchas because they have eaten beef; they are concerned only with outer, not inner, purity.”
Vimalananda knew that I had already been called a ‘mleccha’ a few times. “They refuse to see how Westerners like you and Freddy have changed their ways, and they also ignore the fact that millions of Indians are adopting the worst of the West and are converting themselves into mlecchas.
“But why should anyone be trying to do Vedic sadhana at all during Kali Yuga? It’s just not possible to do it properly, especially not today when everything has become polluted. Other sadhanas are more appropriate for Kali Yuga. In fact, Kali Yuga is the age in which Shudras are better equipped to realize God than even Brahmanas are. Shudras can get experiences of God which Brahmanas can never aspire to. If you were to meet God in per son what would you do?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You would, I hope, fall at His feet. You would not walk up to Him, squeeze His cheek and say, ‘Hello there, God! I’ve come to love you.’ No, you would prostrate yourself to Him. Shudras know how to be humble; anyone who serves someone else must learn humility. Until you possess sin cere humility you are not fit to touch the feet of God, or even the feet of a good saint. Brahmanas have to overcome the pride they have in their learn ing, but anyone who is humble can say, ‘Lord, I am stupid and I know it. You are my only hope. Save me!’ And He will.”
“Which of these four types are you?” I meant it playfully, but Vimalanan da’s visage solidified perceptibly, and his words became weighty.
“You want to know who I am? By birth I am a Vaishya, a merchant’s son. By training I am more advanced than most of the Brahmanas we have in India today. When I do my austerities and rituals my determination is supe rior to that of most born Kshtriyas. And when I go to the smashan for sadhana I am much worse than a Shudra; what I do there no Shudra would dare to do. It is too horrible for the average person. But, then, this is Kali Yuga.”
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