Difference between revisions of "Yatharth Geeta -Swami Adgadanand 852"

This is the fourth time when Yogeshwar Krishn has taken up the issue. He named Kshatriya in Chapter 2 and said that “there is nothing more propitious for a Kshatriya than a righteous war.” (verse 31) In Chapter 3 he said that although inferior in merit, one’s own natural calling (dharm) is the best and even meeting with death while upholding it results in good, whereas an obligation other than one’s own, even though well observed, generates nothing but dread.(verse 35) In Chapter 4, then, he indicated that he is the creator of the four classes.(verse 13) Does he mean by this that he has divided men into four rigid castes determined by birth?

His answer to the question is an emphatic no, and he asserts that he has but divided action into four categories according to their inherent properties. The innate property of a being or object is a measure-a yardstick. So the division of mankind into four varn is only a division of the one and same action into four stages according to the motivating properties. In Krishn’s words, action is the mode of attaining to the one, inexpressible God. The conduct that takes one to God is worship, which commences in faith in the desired end. So meditation on the Supreme Being is the one true action that Krishn has-divided into four steps in his system of varn. Now, how are we to know to which property and stage we belong? This is what Krishn turns to in the following verses.