Because my father was high-court judge, therefore I am high-court judge. Is that very good logic? You have to prove your superiority by your qualification and actual work

Expressions researched:
"Because my father was high-court judge, therefore I am high-court judge." Is that very good logic"

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Tradition, what is that tradition? Tradition is here, in the proof. Cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ. The reference is given to the quality, guṇa, and karma, and action. How you can simply say that because I'm born in such and such family, therefore I have also the same thing. Because my father was high-court judge, therefore I am high-court judge. Is that very good logic? How you became superior? You have to prove your superiority by your qualification and actual work.

Morning Walk -- December 8, 1973, Los Angeles:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: In Bengal, Śrīla Prabhupāda, the brāhmaṇa caste family like Mukherjees, then Bannerjees, then . . . I had a roommate when I was in Calcutta, his was Mukherjee. So he was telling me one day that "We are much more superior brāhmaṇas than other, like Chaudhuris and Sanyals."

Prabhupāda: But where is your superiority?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: He was explaining like that.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. But where is your superiority. You're a servant now. You're śūdra. You're not even a brāhmin. Superiority by simply explanation will not do. You must be in action. Janma . . . guṇa, karma. Superiority means guṇa, karma. You must have the quality and you must work in that quality. You're a scientist, but after a few generation, a foolish boy in your family say: "We belong to the scientists' family." So what is the use of saying like that? You must become scientist.

Devotee: There's a car coming.

Prabhupāda: When you are a scientist then you are superior, not by simply . . . this has killed the Indian, I mean, Vedic culture when they began to claim superiority simply by birth, without any qualification. That killed the whole civilization.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But I think tradition's still there, isn't it?

Prabhupāda: But tradition, what is that tradition? Tradition is here, in the proof. Cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ (BG 4.13). The reference is given to the quality, guṇa and karma, and action. How you can simply say that, "Because I'm born in such and such family, therefore I have also the same thing. Because my father was high-court judge, therefore I am high-court judge." Is that very good logic? How you became superior?

You have to prove your superiority by your qualification and actual work. This is very nice. The world is accepting like that. Somebody's coming to you to accept some scientific instruction. He accepts you're superior in scientific knowledge, not for your birth, but for your quality and work. That is a fact. So you first of all come to the platform of the quality and work, then you claim superior.

Yaśomatīnandana: Yes. That is foolishness.

Prabhupāda: And that foolishness has killed the whole Vedic civilization.

Yaśomatīnandana: I thought the same way before I became a disciple of Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Yaśomatīnandana: I thought the same way before I became a disciple.

Prabhupāda: Here is a . . . he is coming from a very respectable brāhmaṇa family, but he knows . . .

Yaśomatīnandana: Well, I realized afterwards that I was lower than a śūdra, because actually it was my duty, and I rejected it.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Why we are accepting in Europe and America, call them brāhmaṇa? They are not born in brāhmaṇa family. But why we are giving them sacred thread? Only for quality and work. That is said in the śāstra. Nārada Muni says that the quality and symptoms is the real platform of judging who is brāhmaṇa, who is śūdra. Nārada said, and Śrīdhara Svāmī has commented upon him that birth is immaterial. Quality and work is to be considered.