We cannot accept knowledge from śūdras. Knowledge must be taken from a brāhmaṇa.
- tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet
- samit-pāṇiḥ śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham
- [MU 1.2.12]
This word brahma-niṣṭham means brāhmaṇa, one who knows Brahman. Therefore knowledge has to be taken from a brāhmaṇa, not from a śūdra. So reformatory system is to make one first of all a brāhmaṇa. Janmanā jāyate śūdraḥ saṁskārād bhaved dvijaḥ. Every person is born a śūdra, a rascal. Then by reformatory process... Just like we send our children to school, college, to teachers for reforming, that is reformation. The animals, they are unable to accept this reformatory process. You cannot send a cat or a dog to the school and become educated. That is not possible. All human beings, although they are born śūdra, he can be made a brāhmaṇa by the process. Saṁskāra means by reformatory process, bhaved dvijaḥ. Dvija means second birth. Second birth means by reformatory process, when he is eligible, then he is initiated by the spiritual master. That is second birth. Then initiation means he is allowed to study Vedic literature to achieve real knowledge. Because real knowledge means Vedic knowledge, and any knowledge which is not corroborated with the Vedic version, that is not knowledge; that is imperfect knowledge.
Therefore whenever we speak something, we quote from the Vedas, from Vedic literature, to support it. Otherwise it is useless. When you speak something and corroborate it by the quotation from the Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Upaniṣads—there are so many Vedic literatures—then it is correct. That is the Vedic system. Not that I create knowledge by my research. What is the value of your research? Because you are imperfect, your senses are imperfect, you cannot even see properly. Even you cannot see your eyelids, so what is the value of your seeing? You cannot see something from a distant place, the nearest place. There must be some adjustment, there must be light under so many conditions you can see. Then what is the value of your eyes?