Therefore our business should be not to associate with the material qualities. Even up to goodness. Material quality, goodness means the brahminical quality. Sattva śama damas titikṣā. So devotional service is transcendental to these good qualities also. In this material world, if somehow or other, he has got the birth in a brāhmaṇa family or he's executing his duties exactly a strict brāhmaṇa, still he's conditioned under the laws of this material nature, still. And what to speak of others, those who are in the modes of passion and ignorance. Their position is most abominable. Jaghanya-guṇa-vṛtti-sthā adho gacchanti tāmasāḥ: (BG 14.18) Those who are in the modes of ignorance, jaghanya, very abominable condition. So at the present moment... That is śūdra. Kalau śūdra-sambhavaḥ. In this age of Kali, everyone is in the modes of ignorance. Śūdra. They do not know because they have no... One who know that "I am spirit soul; I am not this body," he is brāhmaṇa. And one who does not know, he is śūdra, kṛpaṇa. Etad vidita prāye sa brāhmaṇa. Everyone dies, that's all right, but one who dies after knowing the spiritual truth... Just like here, the students who are trying to understand what is spiritual life, and, somehow or other, if he understands that he's spirit soul, at least, then he becomes brāhmaṇa. He becomes brāhmaṇa. Etad vidita. And one who does not understand, he is kṛpaṇa. Kṛpaṇa means miser. Brāhmaṇa means liberal. These are the shastric injunctions.
So first of all, we have to become brāhmaṇa. Then Vaiṣṇava. Brāhmaṇa simply knows that "I am spirit soul," ahaṁ brahmāsmi.