| From The River Of Heaven |
 |
| Books By David Frawley |
| VEDIC SOCIAL SCIENCE : THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF CULTURE | |
|
|
|
| These four energies are the four
main powers of Nature in human beings. They are the movements of the
cosmic Nature (Prakriti) in man. They are the four main ways of action for all human beings of all
times and places. What determines them is not some social custom or convenience but the attributes of
our nature. This is revealed by our values in life, by what we really
believe in our hearts. It can be ascertained by what we spend the greatest amount of our time
pursuing. If we are mainly occupied in pursuing spiritual knowledge, we
are a Brahmin. If we are mainly concerned with accumulating money, we belong
to the commercial class. If we are mainly after pleasure we are of the servile
class. Birth and family can be an important factor in determining this but in itself it is not enough to indicate it. We sometimes see people of spiritual disposition born in commercial families. We sometimes see people of commercial disposition born in a line of priests. The man of spiritual knowledge understands all these four orders of society and is capable of functioning in any of them. He sees them as different aspects of his own nature; the laborers as his legs, the merchants as his belly, the nobility as his arms and the priests as his head. Until we reach this perspective we cannot go beyond rebirth in the human world. As long as the social order in ancient India was maintained and the dharma or religious practice of the family continued birth could be relied on most of the time as the indication of an individual's place in the social order. But according to the Bhagavad Gita this Aryan family system broke down in India over three thousand years ago at the time of Krishna. Hence after three thousand years this system of determining natural aptitude has degenerated into the caste system which resembles it now only in form.
|
|
|
|
