Don't Serve Your Mind, Serve Your Guru

If you want relifef from this miserable cycle of birth and death, you must absorb your life in devotional service to Lord Sri Krishna. And Krishna says that you can only serve Him by serving his representative, the bona fide spiritual master. Therefore what you must do is crystal clear. You must take shelter of a bona fide spiritual master and fully absorb your thoughts, words, and deeds in his loving service. But yet in spite of these profoundly potent instructions of the Supreme Authority, Lord Sri Krishna, if you foolishly serve your mental whims instead of serving your spiritual master, you will remain caught up in this material existence.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Srila Prabhupada Walks With His DisciplesSrila Prabhupada Walks With His Disciples

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version:

Question: Can A Sudra Become a Brahmana?

Hare Krishna, Guru Maharaja,
Please accept my humble obeisances.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

My question is:
Can a person who is a sudra by dint of how he works develop the guna (nature, behavior, lifestyle) of a brahmana? On the other hand, can a person who is a brahmana by work degrade into a sudra by guna, if he leads an unregulated life? Is his tendency towards brahminical work also affected by such degradation?

Kindly put some light on this matter.
Thanking you in anticipation.

Your servant,
Sushant

Answer: If He Is Not Krishna Conscious, He Becomes a Sudra

In this age practically everyone earns their living as an employee, which means that nowadays practically everyone is a sudra. But if such worker class people take to Krishna consciousness, they automatically become brahmanas, which means knowers of Brahman, the Absolute Truth. In this connection there is a nice Bengali poem:

śuci haya muci haya yadi kṛṣṇa tyaje
muci haya śuci haya yadi kṛṣṇa-bhaje

"If one takes to Krishna consciousness, even if he is born in a family of a cobbler (muci), he becomes greater than a brahmana (suci). However, if one is born in a brahmana family and gives up Krishna consciousness, he becomes a low class man on the level of a muci, a cobbler."

The cobbler is used as the example for a low class man because when a cow dies it is the cobbler who skins the dead cow to get the leather for making shoes. It is not that they would kill the cows for getting meat and leather as is currently become the standard of our demoniac civilization.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

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