View source for If we do not inquire, if we do not try to understand what is Brahman, then we must be frustrated

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{{terms|"If we do not inquire, if we do not try to understand what is Brahman, then we must be frustrated"}}
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{{compiler|Nabakumar}}
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[[Category:If We]]
[[Category:Do Not]]
[[Category:Inquire]]
[[Category:Does Not Try to Understand]]
[[Category:What Is God]]
[[Category:Brahman]]
[[Category:Must Be]]
[[Category:Frustration]]
[[Category:Pages Needing Audio - NABAKUMAR]]
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<h2>Lectures</h2>
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<h3>General Lectures</h3>
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Athāto brahma jijṣāsā. When one has reached to the material perfection, then the next business is to inquire. If we do not inquire, if we do not try to understand what is Brahman, then we must be frustrated. Because the hankering is there, advancement, advancement of knowledge. The theory of advancement of knowledge is that nobody should be satisfied by the knowledge what he already knows. He must know more and more. So in your country in comparison to other country at the present age, you have advanced materially very nicely. Now you take to this brahma-jijṣāsā, inquiry about the Supreme Absolute: What is that Absolute? What I am?
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[[Vanisource:681007 - Lecture - Seattle|681007 - Lecture - Seattle]]
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The most intelligent class is called brahmin, and the less than the brahmins, means those who are administrators, politicians, they are kṣatriyas. And next to them, the mercantile class, traders, merchants, industrialists, less than the administrative class. And less than that, the śūdras. Śūdras means worker, laborer. So this system is not new. It is everywhere. Wherever there is human society, these four classes of men are there.

Sometimes I am questioned why there is caste system in India. Well, this caste system is there. It is by nature. Bhagavad-gītā says, cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ ([[Vanisource:BG 4.13 (1972)|BG 4.13]]): "The four classes of men are there. That is My law." How they are four classes? Guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ. Guṇa means quality, and karma means work. If you have got very nice quality, intelligence, brahminical qualities . . . brahminical qualities means if you speak truth, you are very clean and you are self-controlled, your mind is in equilibrium, you are tolerant, and so many qual . . . you believe in God, you know scriptures practically. These qualities are for the higher class, brahmin.

The first qualification of a brahmiṇ is that he's truthful. He'll disclose everything, even to his enemy. He'll never, I mean to say, hide anything. Satyam. Śaucam, very clean. A brahmiṇ is expected to take bath daily thrice and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Bahyābhyantaram: clean outside, clean inside. These are qualities. So when these opportunities are there, then the Vedānta-sūtra, Vedānta, advises, "Now you begin to inquire about Brahman." Athāto brahma jijṣāsā.

Athāto brahma jijṣāsā. When one has reached to the material perfection, then the next business is to inquire. If we do not inquire, if we do not try to understand what is Brahman, then we must be frustrated. Because the hankering is there, advancement, advancement of knowledge. The theory of advancement of knowledge is that nobody should be satisfied by the knowledge what he already knows. He must know more and more. So in your country in comparison to other country at the present age, you have advanced materially very nicely. Now you take to this brahma-jijṣāsā, inquiry about the Supreme Absolute: What is that Absolute? What I am?

I am also Brahman. Because I am part and parcel of Brahman, therefore I am also Brahman. Just like part and parcel . . . a little particle of gold is also gold. It is no other thing. Similarly, we are also particle of Brahman, or the Supreme. Just like the molecules of sunshine, they are also as illuminating as the sun globe, but they are very small. Similarly, we living entities, we are also the same as God. But He is just like as big as the sun globe or the deity in the sun globe, but we are small particles, the molecules of sunshine. This is the comparison between the Supreme and us.
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