VTE Bhakti-Sastri Course | MAYAPUR INSTITUTE

	In the early 1970s after his arrival at a New York airport, a reporter asked Srila Prabhupada, 'Why have you come to the West?' 'I have come', Prabhupada replied, 'to give you a brain. Your society', he continued, 'is headless.' Using the analogy of the human body, he explained the articulation of human society into four varnas. He then asserted that modern Western society was malformed. 'There are a few vaisyas and everyone else is sudra.' In other words, those now engaged in research and education, in government and defense, are, knowingly or unknowingly, in the employ of a handful of vaisyas. (Prabhupada's perception is perhaps supported by the report that in America, five percent of the families now control ninety percent of the wealth.) There are no proper brahmanas or ksatriyas.
Prabhupada's intention was to re-create a class of genuine brahmanas. This would help rectify the deformities of modern society and ameliorate the spiritual, psychological, social, political and ecological problems spawned by a hypertrophy of economic development and other outgrowths of unrestrained rajo-guna. Prabhupada notes: 'Modern civilization is considered to be advanced in the standard of the mode of passion. Formerly, the advanced condition was considered to be in the mode of goodness' (Bg. 14.7, purport). Genuine brahmanas, he hoped, would help reset the priorities of advanced civilization. Yet Prabhupada's mission of creating brahmanas was in a sense derivative, a kind of automatic by-product of the primary mission of producing Vaishnavas. The word Vaishnava in the strictest sense denotes a pure devotee of God, one who is accordingly transcendental to all the modes of nature. Brahmanas, however, are conditioned by the mode of goodness, and Prabhupada wanted to produce liberated souls. Such liberated Vaishnavas are more advanced than even brahmanas. Nevertheless, in society his Vaishnavas would function primarily as brahmanas.
It should be recognized that historically speaking the Vaishnava traditions in India have all propagated a socially and spiritually radical teaching. Vaishnavism fostered the spiritual enfranchisement of previously disenfranchised groups, and, in so doing, undercut the spiritual (and social) prerogatives of the hereditary brahminical caste. Hence in the Bhagavad-gita (9.32) Krsna cites groups traditionally considered unqualified for spiritual advancement — he mentions women, vaisyas and sudras — and says that by practicing devotion to Him they can 'attain the supreme destination.' In the Bhagavatam (3.33.6) it is stated that even an outcaste (svadah — a dog-eater), if engaging in devotional practices, becomes immediately qualified to perform Vedic sacrifice (traditionally, of course, the monopoly of brahmana males).
Such statements reflect the conviction that bhakti-yoga, devotional service to Krsna, is so spiritually powerful that it can quickly uplift even the most morally and spiritually debased people. Thus facilitated, one does not need to spend many lifetimes transmigrating up the caste hierarchy to reach the brahminical platform. Bhakti-yoga can take sudras, and those even less qualified, and transform them into Vaishnavas and brahmanas. Prabhupada's own Bengali Vaishnava tradition, as reformed by Caitanya at the beginning of the sixteenth century, paid great respect to this spiritual egalitarianism. So schooled, Prabhupada came to try out this principle in the West — in the United States in the 1960s. It was, of necessity, a kind of experiment." The Mayapur Institute's VTE Bhakti-sastri Course is a powerful first step for anyone wanting to undergo the training and education required to begin functioning as a brahmana teacher / preacher.