Understand And Be Unaffected By Action🔗

4.13 Depending upon the distribution of the three attributes or guṇas and actions, I have created the four castes.

Yet, I am to be known as the non-doer, the unchangeable.

4.14 I am not affected by any work; nor do I long for the outcome of such work.

One who understands this truth about Me also does not get caught in the bondage of work.

4.15 All the wise and liberated souls of ancient times have acted with this understanding and thus attained liberation.

Just as the ancients did, perform your duty with this understanding.

4.16 What is action and what is inaction, even the wise are confused.

Let Me explain to you what action is, knowing which you shall be liberated from all ills.

Now, we come to the controversial topic of the so-called caste system. Krishna says, 'I have created the four castes depending upon the distribution of the three guṇas or attributes.'

We have to understand a bit about the guṇas. The word 'guṇa' can be roughly translated to mean 'attribute' or 'quality' that we are born with. It is a state of mind, and is also a reflection of the prārabdha karma, the vāsana, and the mindset with which we are born into this world. All people have all or at least one of the guṇasin them. There are three basic guṇas and they are: satva or purity, rajas or activity and tamas or inactivity.

So many people have quoted this one verse out of context for such a long time. People quote this verse whenever they want the support of religion for making the caste system more solid.

They say, ‘Krishna Himself has sanctioned it’ or, ‘This system has been given by the incarnation Himself.’ We should try to see and examine what Krishna actually meant. If we look a little more deeply into Krishna’s words, we can see that He uses the words, ‘depending upon the distribution of the three guṇas.’ He does not say, ‘depending upon birth.’

It is a fact, I can even say a truth - and there is a lot of difference between fact and truth - that no two persons on this planet earth can be the same. By the same token, every person is unique and possesses a unique ratio of the three guṇas.

Again, we have to note that Krishna does not discriminate. He does not say that this caste is superior, the other one is inferior and so on. He merely states that there are basically four kinds of people; the character of the person will be of that guṇa which is more dominant in him.

The same way that guṇa does not come by birth, varṇa (caste) too does not happen by birth. Guṇa, the mental attribute, is an inherent part of one’s nature, carried over with the vāsana from previous births. Krishna says, ‘Based on the guṇa one is born with, I decide on his varṇa, his caste.’

In the traditional vedic Hindu system of education, a guru, the master, took charge of children at an early age and trained them. He was not only the disseminator of knowledge to these children in what was known as the gurukul system, but he was also the decider of the career and future of each child. The guru evaluated the aptitude of each child under his care based on the child’s mental attitude and attributes, the guṇas, and then decided on the vocation that the child should pursue. This decision was a very scientific process based on an evaluation of the attitude, aptitude, likes and dislikes of the child, supported by astrological studies.

The varṇa system was four-fold. Brāhmaṇas were the scholars and priests, intellectually inclined. Kshatriyas were the soldiers, nobles and kings, aggressive, ambitious and physically strong. Vaishyas were the business community, traders and businessmen with strong commercial acumen. Shudras were the workers, physically able and skillful.

Based on these skill sets, the children were trained. Based on their guṇas, not birth, they were trained for their vocations, their varṇa or caste. It was similar to an assessment of aptitudes and guiding the children, but far more scientific than what is done today in the name of guiding.

Over time, as happens, this system was manipulated. Those who believed that they had a better varṇa, caste, decided they should make it a hereditary right, a birthright. This was an imposition of social and political evil, a misuse of power. Earlier, the system did not allow the son of a brāhmaṇa to be a priest if he was unsuitable or the son of a kshatriya to be a warrior if he was inadequate. But over time, with misuse of power, the caste itself became a birthright and such things started happeneing.

Krishna never condoned the system as it exists today.

Krishna states very clearly that only the one who transcends these three guṇas can reach His state, can reach the higher levels of consciousness. To reach Krishna one has to be a triguṇa rahita, beyond the three guṇas. Then, one becomes a non-doer, a no-caste, no-attribute person.

In the next verses, He elaborates on this aspect.

When a desire is fulfilled, it no longer creates ripples in the mind. Desires that get fulfilled are the basic needs that one is born with, which are the result of the carry-over vāsana, the prārabdha karma. We acquire all other desires by comparing ourselves with others. These are wants, not needs. Existence has no way of fulfilling such wants.

Ramana Maharshi says beautifully: The universe can fulfill the needs of all its inhabitants, but it cannot fulfill the wants of even one person. Wants never stop. They grow and grow. Want and greed only stop with death. Even then they continue to haunt us as the mental attitude, the carried-over vāsanas.

When one works out of basic need, he acquires no karma, since the desires get fulfilled and do not recur. Look at a poor man with just one pair of footwear. He is happy that he does not have to go barefoot. Till that footwear is worn out, he has no need for another one. In comparison, many of us acquire dozens of shoes, many of which we rarely wear. These purchases are born out of our wants, which can never be fulfilled. Nor will we ever get joy out of these possessions. Once acquired, they lose value and then we seek the next acquisition. The cycle goes on.

Have you ever seen a rich man sitting in a five star restaurant enjoying his meal in the same manner as a hard working manual laborer eating his simple homecooked meal? The rich man will be more worried about the various illnesses he has and what he should not eat, than the quality of the food in front of him.

A person who has taken a conscious birth, and only a person who has taken a conscious birth, is aware of his prārabdha karma, the list of needs he is born with. Only he can extinguish his karma by fulfilling this list. Such a person has no attachment to his needs or the results of his action to fulfill these needs. These needs carry an energy of their own that gets them fulfilled. Once fulfilled, they leave no karma trace.

Krishna, the ultimate master, is always conscious. He of course has no karma, no unfulfilled desires, and no attachment. So it is with every enlightened master. His so-called desires get fulfilled as they arise.

When I desire food, it appears. When I feel the need to sleep, I rest. There is no gap between my desire and its fulfillment. There is no trace of that desire after it is fulfilled. The fulfillment is complete. The attachment is zero. Therefore, there is no karma.

This is the lesson every master tries to teach his disciples. Work from your needs, not from your wants. Act without attachment. You shall attract no karma. You shall be liberated.

Q: Swamiji, even though Krishna may not have meant the caste system to develop the way it has developed in India today, it has become an evil practice. How can one accept this? It needs to be eliminated. Is it not?

If you are looking for a socially acceptable answer, I am not the person to address this question to. If you are looking for a politically acceptable answer, I won’t be able to satisfy you.

If you are looking for the truth, the truth is this.

Each of us is unique. We all have different strengths, and along with them some weaknesses as well. All societies are based on this uniqueness. That is why every society, every political structure and every religious organization has a leader to take decisions and to make it effective. If each of us were to lead an independent life, totally separate from each other’s, living in forests and mountains, such structures may not be needed. In such a case the race will not survive either. The moment man and woman start living as husband and wife to build a family, you start institutionalizing a family structure, with hierarchy and inequality.

Every society has its norms on how the hierarchy works. What you call a democracy is not equality. There are the rulers and the ruled. The ruled may live under the illusion that they appoint the rulers, but they are not equals; the same rules do not apply to both. Even in communism, there was no equality between the rulers and the ruled; there was only forced equality amongst the ruled. The rulers were dictators.

You say you are a democracy and everybody is equal. But some people are more equal than others! There are the rich and the poor and various shades in between. So your society is based on the power of money. In another country it may be based on the power of land ownership; in yet another, it is based on the power of connections or the power of education and so on. There is always an underlying basis to differentiate one person from another. Without this differentiation, organized society does not function.

In the vedic culture that prevailed in ancient India, this differentiation was based on aptitude. At an early age in the schooling system, called the gurukul, children were tested for aptitude and trained accordingly. It was not, as I mentioned before, based on birth, but it was based on aptitude. This is the best method I can think of, far better than bringing up a generation based on birth, or parents' wealth or family connections.

If it had not been for this caste system, the vedic culture would not have survived till today in India even to the extent it has. It is the brāhmaṇa communities in various locations, who even risking their lives, protected and nurtured this culture and preserved the knowledge. If centers like Chidambaram in the south of India and Varanasi in the north are repositories of vedic culture, it is mainly because of the brāhmaṇa community who acted in accordance with what they were taught to be their righteous duty.

Today, do people remember the contribution that they have made? Do they acknowledge the contribution made by the caste system to the preservation of the vedic culture? Do they realize that it is this vedic culture that will be India's differentiation and success factor in the world, now and in future?

It is said that Lord Macaulay, who visited India almost two hundred years ago on behalf of the Queen of England, declared after traveling through the whole country that he could not find a single beggar or thief. He recommended that to conquer India, the British had to destroy Her culture and education system. He said that Indians would lose their self-esteem, start thinking that the English culture was superior and allow themselves to be ruled.

Whether this incident is true or not, this man was prophetic and that is what happened. The British destroyed the cultural base of India, far more definitively than the Moghuls before them. The British planted the seeds of hatred towards the caste system so that they could divide and rule. ‘Educated’ Indians gladly followed.

Let us not judge based on political and social prejudices, incited by some who have vested interests. In every form of society there will be some who feel disadvantaged. They will need something in that society to blame for their seemingly disadvantaged position.

In the USA for instance, can you ban wealth creation because the society is differentiated based on wealth and not all can be wealthy? That is what Russia and China tried for many decades and we now know the result.

I do not think abolishing the caste system is a solution. Removing the selfish motives that have been added to it is one solution. Building the vedic tradition of education is another solution. The vedic culture did not favour anyone based on caste. It enhanced one’s capability to serve society based on this caste system. Our society can benefit from a proper understanding of this system, instead of trying to eliminate it. Even if you eliminate this, there will be another form of differentiation that will be neither different nor better.