Prabhupāda: Brāhmaṇa's qualification is there—śama, dama, titikṣa, ārjavam and jñānam, vijñānam, āstikyam, brahma-karma . . . (BG 18.42). Everything is there, the symptoms. So you are doing business, the occupation of the vaiśyas or śūdras, and how you are claiming to become brāhmaṇa? The . . . Who is a brāhmaṇa, that symptoms is there in the śāstra. And not only the symptoms. Nārada Muni has said, "If these symptoms are found elsewhere, then he should be accepted according to the symptom." There is no question of birth.
- yasya hi yaḻ lakṣanām proktaṁ
- varṇābhivyanjakaṁ
- yad anyātrāpi dṛṣyeta
- tat tenaiva vinirdiśet
- (SB 7.11.35)
This is Nārada's version. So it is the symptom. Just like a doctor, medical man. He diagnoses according to the symptom. He finds out the cause. So symptom is required, not that a man has become diseased or healthy by birth. No. By birth he is born. Then again, when he develops certain types of symptom, so one has to take him in that way. That is śāstra. We are accepting, or giving them sacred thread, brāhmaṇa, after seeing that they are actually acting as a brāhmaṇa, not superficially. Therefore we take some time to see whether he can develop brahminical symptom. That is our process. Not that anyone comes, and we give him a sacred thread and he becomes immediately brāhmaṇa. We don't do this. First of all give him chance. Let him chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, follows the rules and regulations. Then let us see. If he is actually serious, he has developed the symptom, then . . . This is the proper way. Even one comes from the brāhmaṇa family—he wants initiation—we don't give immediately, even if he is coming from a brāhmaṇa . . . That is a good facility, that he is born in a brāhmaṇa family, but the symptom is the first necessity. Either you are born in a brāhmaṇa family or śūdra family, it doesn't matter.