Does our varna change with time – can we belong to several varnas?

Answer Podcast

Question: Does our varna change with time – can we belong to several varnas?

Answer:
While varna is influenced by the modes of nature (gunas), it primarily refers to one’s innate psychophysical nature—not just fleeting emotions or desires, but deeper inclinations that shape how we engage with the world.

Varna: Fixed Nature, Varied Expressions

Each varna has its characteristic tendencies:

• Brahmanas gravitate toward intellectual, ritualistic, or counseling roles.
• Kshatriyas are inclined toward leadership, administration, and action.
• Vaishyas engage in trade, agriculture, and commerce.
• Shudras serve through manual or technical labor.

However, within each varna, there is diversity. For example, among the Pandavas:

• Yudhishthira was a Brahminical Kshatriya—wise and restrained.
• Bhima was a Kshatriya Kshatriya—aggressive and eager for battle.

This shows that while varna roles are well-defined in traditional society (e.g., a Kshatriya’s duty is to protect), individual qualities may vary. A Kshatriya might exhibit more wisdom than a Brahmana, or a Vaishya might display greater devotion.

Challenges in Applying Varna Today

Modern professions are complex and multidisciplinary, making rigid varna classifications impractical. For instance:

• Is a scientist (who deals with ideas) a Brahmana, while an engineer (who works with objects) a Shudra?
• If a surgeon switches to general medicine, does their varna suddenly rise?
• What if a financial analyst (traditionally Vaishya) also teaches philosophy (Brahmana role)?

Such simplistic labels fail because:

1. Professions today overlap—many roles require a mix of skills.
2. Individuals are multifaceted—a person may have inclinations spanning multiple varnas.
3. Economic necessity often dictates work, not just innate nature.

Practical Guidance: Focus on Compatibility, Not Labels

Rather than obsessing over varna classifications, we should consider two principles:

1. Do what is needed – Fulfill responsibilities, even if they don’t perfectly align with your nature.
2. Strive for what suits you best – Seek work that aligns with your qualities (guna) and competencies (karma).

Key Takeaways:

• Varna is about innate tendencies, not rigid social boxes.
• Modern life requires flexibility—we may need to perform roles outside our primary nature.
• The goal is compatible engagement—work that minimizes inner conflict and supports spiritual growth.

Instead of overanalyzing whether we “belong” to a specific varna, we should focus on:

• Material satisfaction – Engaging in work that feels meaningful.
• Spiritual progress – Reducing distractions by aligning our duties with our nature as much as possible.

In essence, varnashrama is not about strict categorization but about creating a society where everyone can contribute according to their strengths—leading to both worldly harmony and spiritual advancement.

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Question, might a person waver between the various Varanas, Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya Shudra just as, because after all the modes keep changing, so as the modes change in a person, would that affect their Varana also? Answer, generally while the Varana is associated with the modes, but Varana refers to innate psychophysical nature, so it's not just the emotions that we feel or the desires that we have, but it's more about the overall patterns of the kind of things we feel inspired to do, so Karma, Brahmana would be inclined toward more of their intellectual work of teaching, ritual work of being a priest or counseling work of being a guide, Kshatriya will be more inclined toward managing or leading or getting things done in the world and not just in the world of ideas, but in the world of objects, world of, in the world of things getting those, getting things done. So, if we can say, rather than thinking of each Varana to be frozen, we can say that each Varana has its, within its layers, so among the Pandavas, Yudhishthira is relatively speaking a Brahmanical Kshatriya, whereas Bhima is a Kshatriya Kshatriya. Now, what do you mean by Kshatriya Kshatriya? Basically, Bhima is quite aggressive, in some ways he's itching for a fight, whereas Yudhishthira is relatively the most pacific among all of them, so in that sense there could be variation within a Varana.

Now, are the boundaries of Varana rigidly fixed? Well, in terms of social roles, the duties of a Kshatriya and the duties of a Brahmana are fixed, as are the duties of a Vaishya and a Shudra, but the same time in terms of inclinations, it could be that sometimes a Kshatriya might have more wisdom than a Brahmana, and certainly any Varana can have more devotion, normally a Kshatriya won't have the time for systematic and exclusive study of scripture that, or the training and rituals that a Brahmana has, but essential wisdom, sometimes Kshatriya might have it more than a Brahmana also. So, overall, in terms of, now we talk about guna-karma-vibhaga-saha, so in terms of karma activities, the social duties are relatively well defined, at least they were in traditional Varanasyam, and in terms of qualities, yes, it may be that the qualities could be, one person from one Varana might have a little bit of qualities of the other Varana also. So, Brahmanas are meant to be forgiving, but among Brahmanas, there might be some who might be more bellicose, more eager to fight, and others might be less eager to fight.

So, what does all this mean for us practically? In today's world, it's very difficult to put labels, to categorize into these four Varanas, the occupations of today's society. You might simplistically put in some kind of classification, and I'm using the word simplistic intentionally, because some devotees may say that scientists deal with ideas, so they are Brahmanas, engineers deal with things, so they are Shudras. So, some people have this classification that Brahmanas deal with ideas, Kshatriyas deal with people, Vaishyas deal with animals, and Shudras deal with things.

Now, such kind of classifications can strike us as very powerful, but are they, and they have an element of truth in them, but they are the absolute truths for all practical purposes in today's society, say, or some people say that doctors, Vaidyas, they may be Brahmanas, but surgeons are Shudras, because they deal with the body. That's only one aspect of it, but in general, surgeons study more than, and get more training and expert training than the doctors. So, it's an oversimplified understanding to say that by studying more, a person will become, become, fall in Varana.

So, what happens if a surgeon stops practicing surgery and becomes a comes a doctor, consulting, suddenly their Varana rises. If an engineer is employed as scientist, then suddenly does an engineer become a Brahmana? If a scientific research goes down because of the government not giving funds or whatever, and a scientist starts working as an engineer, does their Varana suddenly change from Brahmana to Shudra? These are super simplistic ideas. So, today's professions themselves are quite often multidisciplinary and that's why to designate within one category from the four Varana ashram, rigidly one particular profession, that is not precise.

So, it may not be precise. So, what, how does it apply for all of us at an individual level, not at a generic societal level in terms of identity labeling professions or categorizing professions per se. It is that we also live in a world because it is so interdisciplinary at a professional level, we also may have to play multiple roles.

So, the important thing would be to consider two things. What is needed from us, we do that. And secondly, what we are best suited for, we strive to do that.

Sometimes, somebody who has a Vaishya nature, some Brahminical nature, may have to dabble with financial money matters. They can't just say, no, I won't do it. Well, they may have to because maybe in the family there's nobody else to deal with it, maybe in a social situation, that's what is called for.

Well, do it, do the needful as Prabhupada would say. At the same time, we can try to find what kind of work suits us the best. So, in that connection, I translate guna and karma sometimes as guna is qualities in terms of what we are, what we feel good doing.

So, it's comfort. And karma is activities or what we are good at, what we are good at doing, competence. So, among the range of activities that we may do, we look at what we are comfortable doing and what we are competent doing.

And based on that, we gravitate, we try to orient our life in such a way that we get to do those things more. If we can do those things alone, then we could say maximum compatibility between our nature and our profession. But even if you could get to do it more, then that might also cause less inner conflict between us.

Also, whether today, because today even the minds are complicated, upadrutaha, as the Bhagavad Gita, as Bhagavatam says, agitated mind is a characteristic of this age. Now, one reason the mind can be agitated is because it is unable to identify its natural profession. It's in its psychophysical, psychophysically appropriate profession.

And that is what we actually see also in the world. Many people, many people, especially in third world, don't get jobs and they're just immensely reluctant to get jobs. But as the economy becomes a little more prosperous, the people don't just want jobs, they want jobs that give job satisfaction.

So, job satisfaction means that they feel that they are doing something valuable with their jobs, not just that they are having a job and that they're getting a salary, which is valuable from a basic perspective, but we want more. So, the point I'm making is that because there have been, there may be generations of intermarriages between various Varanas, the progeny may not belong to one particular Varana and or it may be at least very difficult to identify the Varana of a progeny and for ourselves also, after decades, we may still not be sure exactly what is it that we are primarily inclined to. And if the key principle underlying Varanashram is not just to categorize people into four Varanas or four classes, the key principle is not classification but compatible engagement.

So, everybody has to, has a right to be engaged in work that is broadly compatible with their nature. So, if we find that when somebody is compatibly engaged, then two things happen. That there is certain level of material satisfaction that comes from the compatible engagement and secondly, there is a certain level of spiritual, there is certain level of decreased distraction so that one can focus on spiritual life.

If you are materially highly dissatisfied or even distressed, dissatisfaction is the absence of satisfaction or happiness, distress is like the negative. So, dissatisfaction is the absence of the positive and distress is the presence of the negative. So, if you are distressed, then it's even more difficult for a person to actually focus on spiritual life steadily.

So, rather than worrying whether our Varana changes and is it flickering, we can focus on the principle that we all, that the principle of Varanashram is to provide everyone compatible engagement and we try to find out what engagement would be compatible for us or what set of engagements would be compatible for us and do those accordingly. So, without trying to, too technique, getting too technical into the analysis of specific, of our own, of categorizing our, so there are three steps. First of all, you have to identify our psychophysical nature, then try to align it with certain engagements that are available for us and that are necessary for us, based on our social and professional and economic situations and then to place them in a categorization of the fourfold Varanashram system.

So, this is an elaborate exercise and rather than getting caught in technicalities, if that exercise is not moving forward smoothly, you can just focus on doing the set of engagement that brings the maximum compatibility between us and our work, without necessarily considering that, this is putting a label of any particular Varana on those professions.