The Caste System

The Hindu scriptures have brought the entire humanity under a fourfold classification. Its applicability is not just confined to India, but it is universal. They are not always determined by heredity or accident of birth.They are termed (1) Brahmanas—with a major portion of sattva, little rajas, and minimum tamas, (2) Kshatriyas—mostly rajas with some sattva, and a dash of tamas, (3) Vaishyas—with more rajas, less sattva and some tamas and (4) Sudras—mostly tamas, little rajas, with only a suspicion of sattva.In the modern language, the four types of people may be called (1) creative thinkers, (2) politicians, (3) commercial employers, and (4) labourers. We can easily recognise how each subsequent classification holds in awe and reverence the previous higher class. Employees are afraid of their employers, commercial men are suspicious of politicians, and politicians tremble when faced with courageous independent thinkers.Different types of duties are assigned to each of these classes of individuals depending upon their nature, which is ordered by the proportion of the gunas in the make-up of each type of inner equipment..Since each mind-intellect equipment is governed and ruled over by its guna, each equipment has its own nature to reckon with. A vehicle that can efficiently work in one medium of transport cannot work in another medium with the same efficiency. A car is efficient on the road but on water? The rajasika mind cannot fly into meditation and maintain its poise as easily and as beautifully as the sattvika mind can. Similarly, in the field in which a Kshatriya can outshine everybody, a Vaishya or a Sudra cannot. To rise to the highest station in social life, all men cannot have identical opportunities. A social system can only give ‘equal opportunities’ for all its members to develop their gifts in and through life.If a man who is fit temperamentally for one type of work is entrusted with a different type of activity, he will bring chaos not only to the field but also in himself. If a man of commercial temperament, comes to serve as a temple priest, the sacred place will become, ere long, worse than a trading centre; and again, let him become the head of any government, he will, out of sheer instinct, begin doing profitable ‘business’ from the seat of governmental authority; people call it corruption!When a person works devotedly, in the proper field and in the environment best suited to him, he will be exhausting the existing vasanas in him. And when the vasanas are reduced, he will experience tranquillity and peace within and it will become possible for him to discover more and more concentration and single-pointed contemplation.

The Caste System

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