Vaishya

So this was the fourfold ashram, four ashrams.

Just as you had the fourfold varna vyavastha, that I have told already, you know, Brahman, Shatria, Vaishya and Shutra, what it meant.

And The thing is, why? Was it fixed? No, because the rebirth is there.

What is rebirth? It's evolutionary progress.

Today's Shudra is bound to become Brahman one day through the cycle of rebirth.

Today's Brahman has gone through Shudra and Vaishya.

As simple as that.

So there was no injustice.

Footnote.

Among the Hindus, the four classes of men are the Brahmins, or priestly class, the Kshatriya, or warlike class, the Vaishya, or agricultural and mercantile class, and the Shudra, or menial class.

The four stages of life are the life of a religious student, the life of a householder, the life of a hermit, and the life of a Sunyasi, or devotee.

End of footnote.

It is not meant only for a dweller in a city, like the Latin urbanus as opposed to rusticus.

End of footnote Having thus acquired learning, a man, with the wealth that he may have gained by gift, conquest, purchase, deposit, or inheritance from his ancestors, should become a householder and pass the life of a citizen.

Footnote Gift is peculiar to a Brahmin, conquest to a Kshatriya, while purchase, deposit, and other means of acquiring wealth belongs to the Vaishya.

End of footnote He should take a house in a city or large village, or in the vicinity of good men, or in a place which is the resort of many persons.

You know, I really don't want to go into gender and all that there.

But I think the women were pretty empowered because there's a very important chapter on Vaishika and Vaishyas and courtesans.

And the courtesans are not like commercial sex workers.

They choose their lovers.

You know, a very debated topic about Indianism, Hinduism, the Bharatiya culture is the Varna system.

You know, this class system, Brahmin, Kshatriya, Shudra, Vaishya.

If we understand why it was laid, we can abandon the system and modify it for the current day.

Let me just take a simple example.

You know, there are four classes.

Economically speaking, the highest is the Kshatriya, the next is the Vaishya, then comes the Brahmin and the Shudra.

Spiritually speaking, the Brahmin is the higher most class.

Now, there is a tradition, they say, when you are doing a good act, let us say you are doing a pooja, you are doing a marriage, you are performing a yagna, you have to give charity to a Brahmin.

Even, yeah, even the child has to, like, spell it out.

Like, do you think my aunt is a Vaishya? She's not.

She's my mother.

Like, you know, this is important

Among men, as Brahmana.

as Kshatriya through the divine Kshatriya, as Vaisya through the divine Vaisya, as Sudra through the divine Sudra.

Therefore people wish for their future state among the Devas through Agni, the sacrificial fire only, and among men through the Brahmana, for in these two forms did Brahman exist.

now if a man departs this life without having seen his true future life in the self then that self not being known does not receive and bless him as if the veda had not been read or as if a good work had not been done nay even if one does not know that self should perform here on earth some great holy work it will perish for him in the end Let a man worship the self only as his true state.