by Pandava bandhava das
Çré Kåñëa continued:
“As
long as one is not satiated by fruitive activity and has not awakened his taste
for devotional service by çravaëaà kértanaà viñëoù, one has to act according to
the regulative principles of the Vedic injunctions.” (Srimad Bhagavatam
11.20.9)
Çréla Viçvanätha Cakravärté Öhäkura comments:
It is said:
“The çruti and småti literatures are to be
understood as My injunctions, and one who violates such codes is to be
understood as violating My will and thus opposing Me. Although such a person
may claim to be My devotee, he is not actually a Vaiñëava.”
Devotees may think that, since they are devotees following purely,
it is not necessary to follow injunctions and prohibitions in çruti and småti,
such as vows like Ekädaçé and
forbidden acts like putting coconut water in a bell metal vessel, or putting
yogurt or milk in a copper vessel, or eating the Lord’s offerings before
offering to the Lord. However,
understanding that the çruti and småti are the Lord’s order, they
should follow those instructions.
That is the answers to the question “is it
necessary for the devotees to follow varnasrama? If they are liberated, at the
level of bhava and above, they are not required to follow, though most of them
would still follow the rules for the sake of giving a good example to the
common people and neophyte devotees. Those who are not liberated should follow
the standard rules of varnasrama given by our founder-acharya, His Divine Grace
AC Bhaktivedanta Svami Srila Prabhupada.
One of the most common arguments against
varnasrama is that “we are not these bodies, so we don’t have to follow the
rules connected with the bodies”.
Though it is true that we are not this
body, it is also true that for most of us this is still a theoretical concept.
When we make our choices in life we are still (in most cases) acting according
to our material conditioning. For example, often the persons making the claim
“we are not this body, therefore I should be allowed to do any type of service,
especially those that award social prestige” are devotees currently situated in
the grihasta asram. If they have realized that they are not their material
conditioning they should have no problem doing any type of seva; they should
not have preferences based on political agenda or social prestige. That means
that they should not insist on giving the lecture at the Sunday feast or
performing the arati, or dressing the deities for festivals. They should be as
eager to go on traveling sankirtan, to clean the toilets, or to take out the
garbage. Otherwise their claim “we are not this body” is simply hypocrisy.
