How can we know what our prescribed duty is in today’s world?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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Any other questions? So, Krishna says, do your prescribed duty. But how do we know what is our prescribed duty? See, again, there is… there are specific practices and there are universal principles. So, I’ll give an example for this.
The scriptures sometimes talk about specific practices. But, from those specific practices, there are universal principles. So, for example, the Bhagavad Gita is spoken on a specific historic location.
That is, a war is about to take place. And Arjuna also has a specific dilemma. Should I fight or should I not fight? Now, from that specific situation, the Bhagavad Gita moves to universal principles.
Okay. What is Dharma? What is Dharma? On what basis should we act? With the universal principles. So, basically, when we want to learn or apply something, we move from specifics to universals.
And then from universals we come to specifics again. In literary theory, this is called the ladder of abstraction. So, ladder of abstraction means that, basically, what did this mean in its original setting? What is its universal meaning? And what does it mean right now? Actually, Prabhupada in his books does it all the time.
So, for example, in the prayers of Prahlad Maharaj in the seventh canto, Prahlad Maharaj is saying that how the senses pull us in different directions. Eyes pull me in one direction, the ears pull me in another direction. Now, Prabhupada in his translation itself writes that the ears are attracted to radio songs.
Now, somebody may say at the time of Prahlad Maharaj, there are no radio songs. So, what is going on over here? See, Prabhupada is actually making scripture accessible to us. The universe at that time made some other kind of songs.
But the principle is the ears distract us. And so, we move from that specific to the universe. And from the universe we come back to the specific today.
So, the specifics of what our prescribed duties will be, that can be so, Varanashram is in Varanashram there is a specific form and again there is a principle. The form was that you divide society into four Varanas. But again the principle is what basically to give people engagement according to their nature, according to their strengths.
And so, everybody faces problems in life. But the expertise of Varanashram is to give people problems that they like to face. Say, somebody is a Brahmana, intellectual.
In the Bhagavatam, there is some verse on that. Can you find it out? Yeah, I’ll search it out. But if somebody is a Vaishan, can you find this verse? Thousands of verses.
Who will find out? You have a class. Just give the class without the verse. Who is going to know this? On the other hand, if somebody is of a Vaishya nature, they told me, OK, we want to build a big temple and we have to raise 1 million dollars.
Yeah, now we can do something. I’ll go to this person, we’ll do this, we’ll make this scheme, we’ll arrange this. If you are a Brahmana, you have to raise 1 million dollars for building a temple.
After you build a temple, what are you going to do? You want to study scripture? Do it now! How do you need to build a temple? So, the point is that in Varanashram, the purpose was not just to divide society into classes. The point was to engage people according to their strengths. And that principle, we can apply now also.
So, if we are in a particular situation, we are in a family, we are in a particular job, we don’t have to radically shift at all. Whatever situation we are in, the purpose of the prescribed duties within Varanashram was to make our material life as harmonious as possible for our spiritual growth. If I am materially engaged in a profession that I am completely unsuitable for, then that causes me so much agitation, that causes me so much frustration that I can’t have any peace of mind to do spiritual activities.
The idea is to make the material life as harmonious as possible so that we can practice spiritual life. Varanashram itself is not inherently spiritual. Varanashram is basically a material division of society.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says that नाहं वित्रो अच्छे नरपते नावि विष्वो नशूतो नाहं वर्णी जिग्रहपते त्वनस्थोय तिरवा He says, I am not a Brahmin Kshatriya I am not a Brahmachari He said, what am I? गोपी भर्तु पदकमलयो दास दास आन्दास I am a servant of the Lord of the Gopis. So the point is that Varanashram was meant to have a social division so that there is a harmonious engagement of people who practice spiritual life So in today’s situation it may not be practical to have that kind of division but the principle over there was that we engage in a way that is materially engaged in a way that is harmonious for our spiritual life So if we are in a job which is very demanding and it doesn’t leave us time for spiritual life, then we may consider shifting to some other job which will give us time for our spiritual life which will give us overall balance in our life So that could be a practical way which could apply the essential principle of Varanashram. So prescribed duties are not necessarily some duties which are necessarily given only in scripture Prescribed duty means the duty which enables us to maintain our material life.
So whatever duties we are doing right now, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu talked about practically, धाने स्थितः शुत्यगर्थान्धनुवान्मनोभेव He quoted Brahma and he said wherever you are situated over there just start hearing about Krishna by hearing about Krishna you will actually develop attraction to Krishna and ultimately you will attain Krishna So whatever duties we need to do so that we can make our material life harmonious to our spiritual life, growth that is what we can consider our prescribed duties in today’s situation. Does that answer your question? Thank you. Any other questions?