Yaśomatīnandana: ...Gaura-gaṇoddeśa-dīpikā in which you, all the original svarūpa of all the devotees are given?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Yaśomatīnandana: So most of the Lord Caitanya's associates were gopīs from the...
Prabhupāda: Associates...
Yaśomatīnandana: Lord Kṛṣṇa's...
Prabhupāda: Some of them gopīs, some of them cowherd boys, some of them father, mother, like that.
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 what is your superiority. You're a servant now. You're śūdra. You're not even a brāhmaṇa. Superiority by simply explanation will not do. You must be (indistinct). 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 scientist's family." So what is the use of saying like that? You must become scientist. 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 must be still...
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 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: Here is a... He comes 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 all 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 the 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 (indistinct). Otherwise how Caitanya Mahāprabhu can accept Haridāsa Ṭhākura as nāmācārya, the authority of the Holy Name? He was born in a Mohammedan family. And this Sanātana Gosvāmī, they are rejected from brāhmaṇa family because they're servants of Nawab Hussain Shah and they adopted Muslim way of life. Their name was also changed-Dabira Khāsa, Sākara Mallika, this Mallika (laughs), Sākara Mallika. But although they're born in brāhmaṇa family, but they're rejected from the brāhmaṇa family because they accepted service. Formerly the brāhmaṇas were so strict. Brāhmaṇa cannot accept any service. Then he becomes śūdra. To accept service is the business of the śūdra. And it is warned in the śāstra. If a brāhmaṇa becomes economically poor, he may act as a kṣatriya, as a vaiśya, not as a śūdra. Then it will be quite degradation. So now this, what is this brāhmaṇa, he's in service?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: I think he's a physicist now. I think he came here about one year before I came here.
Prabhupāda: So if he's in service, then he's śūdra.
Yaśomatīnandana: Yes, Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: He's śūdra, paricaryātmakaṁ karma śūdra-karma svabhāva-jam (BG 18.44). As soon as one accepts service of a master, immediately śūdra.
Yaśomatīnandana: True brāhmaṇas even didn't care for kings.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Yaśomatīnandana: They didn't care for the honor from king or they didn't, they would...
Prabhupāda: They would give advice to the kings but never accept the post of a king.
Hṛdayānanda: So every kṣatriya had to have something to manage?
Prabhupāda: Yes. There was a regular advisory committee, privy council, composed of high learned brāhmaṇas and saintly persons.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: I think people who say like this they are jealous.
Prabhupāda: Ha?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They are jealous of the other people who are coming up higher than them. So, seeing them, they are quite jealous.
Prabhupāda: Who?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: These so-called brāhmaṇas.
Prabhupāda: They must be jealous because if simply by taking birth in a brāhmaṇa family he can become brāhmaṇa and if somebody protests then he, he becomes jealous... (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya.