How Varnasrama and Farm Communities Revive Our Vedic Prescribed Duties
The concept of dharma, prescribed duties, stands at the very heart of Vedic culture. In the second chapter of the Bhagavad-gita, verse 31, Lord Krishna addresses Arjuna with profound wisdom about the nature of one's specific duty, known as svadharma. This teaching remains as relevant today as it was five thousand years ago.
The Unique Opportunity of Human Life
The special feature of this human form of life is to understand dharma. Everything we do, speak, think, remember, and feel needs to be intimately connected with this concept. When we cultivate this knowledge of dharma, our life becomes successful.
As Narada Muni explains to Yudhishthira Maharaja in Srimad-Bhagavatam, all the Vedic literatures and shastras point in the same direction: to remember and realize who we are and our relationship with the Supreme. The body, the mind, and the soul, everything in relation to our being, both material and spiritual, will be fully satisfied when we understand and apply dharma in our lives.
Two Levels of Dharma
The verse from Bhagavad-gita 2.31 introduces us to the concept of svadharma: one's own prescribed duty. Krishna tells Arjuna: “Considering your specific duty as a kshatriya, you should know that there is no better engagement for you than fighting on religious principles; and so there is no need for hesitation.”
Srila Prabhupada explains in his purport that as long as one is not liberated, one has to perform the duties of his particular body in accordance with religious principles in order to achieve liberation. When one is liberated, one's specific duty becomes spiritual.
In the bodily conception of life, there are specific duties for the brahmanas, kshatriyas, vaishyas, and shudras, and such duties are unavoidable. This system is ordained by the Lord and serves as a stepping stone for spiritual understanding. Human civilization begins from the stage of varna: specific duties in terms of the specific modes of nature of the body.
Discharging one's specific duty in any field of action in accordance with the orders of higher authorities serves to elevate one to a higher status of life. The whole Vedic culture is arranged in such a way as to facilitate and favor one's adopting and understanding these two levels of dharma: both transcendental duties as a spirit soul and material duties in terms of this physical body.
The Purpose of the Lord's Descent
One of the primary purposes why the Lord descends into the material world is to re-introduce or to re-establish these principles of dharma. Those who are fortunate to hear and accept these principles can become successful. This is also the primary focus of the acharyas: those who receive this knowledge and endeavor to spread and introduce it to the world.
This year (2021) is especially significant as it marks the 125th appearance anniversary of our founder-acharya, Srila Prabhupada. His primary focus was on making this knowledge available through book distribution. But not only did Prabhupada want us to hear and study these transcendental literatures: he also wanted us to apply the knowledge.
The Two Solid Programs
Prabhupada identified two major programs within the movement that he established, explaining that these are the two most solid programs. If we can concentrate on these two programs, the Krishna consciousness movement will be successful.
The first is books: because it is from the books that we get this knowledge. Lord Krishna descends to give this knowledge to Arjuna and to all of humanity, and our acharyas likewise are disseminating and distributing this knowledge.
The second is farms: land, farm communities. This is where we connect with community and congregation. Specifically, communities and congregations within a rural setting, within an agrarian culture. Vedic culture is primarily an agrarian-based culture, a cow-based culture. When we take out cows, villages, and the land, we lose the foundation of Vedic civilization.
The Mode of Goodness and Self-Realization
There is a very natural and obvious reason for this emphasis on agrarian life, though to most people it may not be so obvious. If one reads even a little bit of the knowledge given in the Vedic literatures, we come to know about what is actually the main, predominant, and sustainable economy: one that will more easily, more quickly, and more effectively facilitate our becoming self-realized, while also meeting our different bodily necessities in life.
The Vedic system of varnashrama is orchestrated to gradually bring people from the lower levels of tamas and rajas to at least the level of sattva: the mode of goodness. Because it is only in the mode of goodness, when the consciousness is more purified and the mind is more peaceful, that we can begin to understand when we hear from Bhagavad-gita.
Those who are too covered by the mode of ignorance might hear the Bhagavad-gita, but they simply won't understand. The Bhagavad-gita represents the beginning stage of awakening our consciousness.
Learning from Current Circumstances
Recently, a questionnaire was sent to some of our ISKCON communities, asking representatives what devotees can learn from the pandemic. A devotee from Gita Nagari Baru, a wonderful community of 150 devotees in Indonesia with over 40 families, gave a remarkably down-to-earth reply.
He observed that during the pandemic, many people from the city returned to the villages. Why? Because farmers produce food, and we need to eat food every day. People in the city are actually depending on people in the country. If the people in the country stop producing food, people in the city are finished. Simple and obvious: yet not so obvious for many people.
This is why Srila Prabhupada was speaking about varnashrama: a lifestyle, an agrarian lifestyle, based on the natural concept of sustainable economy and self-sufficiency. If we don't understand this and if we don't apply this, we too will face difficulties.
Challenges and Faith
The transition to agrarian life is not without challenges. Most devotees and people in general have been disconnected from the land. They don't know how to cultivate, and have no clue about cows. That's why Prabhupada wanted to facilitate this transition by introducing training and education through varnashrama colleges.
We need to consider: what are we going to believe? Modern society presents a so-called easy lifestyle where you don't have to work physically so hard, where you can just get some job sitting behind a computer with no big sweat. But Krishna himself demonstrated the recommended lifestyle 5,000 years ago. Before the British came to India, that lifestyle was still very much present: natural, peaceful, with good relationships, united families, and good character.
The situation now is definitely challenging because we've been pulled out from our natural way of living. But if we accept what is given by Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita and by our acharyas, we can make progress. The success of a disciple and devotee is to accept and apply the instructions received, even though it may seem difficult or even impossible.
Spreading Krishna consciousness in every town and village by one elderly gentleman who traveled to America on a cargo ship seemed impossible as well. But we should have firm faith in the instructions of our acharyas and the shastra.
Vedic Cities: A Different Vision
When we speak about cities being demoniac, we're speaking about our modern cities in the 20th and 21st centuries: cities completely under the modes of ignorance and passion. But there have always been cities in Vedic times, like Dwaraka.
Cities were surrounded by villages where they were protected and maintained by the king. People were provided free land, with a fixed percentage (typically 25%) given from whatever one produced. Kings had their own personal herds of cows and would give away cows and land to the brahmanas.
There is a whole science for building cities, just as there is a science for building villages. This is found in texts like Kautilya's Arthashastra—describing how many families should be in a village, how villages should be supervised, proper distances between settlements, and appropriate populations and activities. This is dandaniti: the science of governance.
In Vedic times, the only buildings meant to stand for thousands of years were temples. Otherwise, kings lived in palaces while ordinary people lived simply. Today, everyone wants to be king, and therefore everyone has their so-called palace with all facilities.
The Formula for Economic Development
The formula for Vedic economic development is in the 18th chapter of the Bhagavad-gita. All of the economic plans for development that are constantly bombarded to the public by practically every nation in the world are simply false because they're not based on what is actually sustainable.
We have very seriously, with all the economic development policies introduced in the last decades, completely destabilized the whole economic status of the world. Financial and economic crisis is one of the major global crises we face today. Unless people receive this knowledge from Bhagavad-gita, they will simply continue down the wrong track.
Our business, as first and second-generation devotees, is to pave the way, to facilitate for the coming generations. We can't expect to change the whole world immediately, but we can begin by at least following these basic instructions given by Srila Prabhupada. The residents of Vrindavan worked hard every day, but they were blissful because their consciousness was highly elevated. The work was not a burden: they were physically growing their food and looking after cows, but their consciousness was purified.
This is the great opportunity and our great fortune, to have come in contact with the Bhagavad-gita and to cultivate this knowledge in our own personal lives.
Article based on lecture by Bhakti Raghava Swami: Vedic Prescribed Duties | Bhagavad-Gita | Chap-2 | Verse 31