Discovering our place in Kṛṣṇa’s service according to our nature
We hear a lot about varnāśrama and the importance of finding our natural duty connected with our nature. However, when we have doubts, it becomes complicated.
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We hear a lot about varnāśrama and the importance of finding our natural duty connected with our nature. When our mission becomes clear, it is easier to find the strength to work in that direction, but when we have doubts, it becomes complicated. We can see that the doubts of Arjuna at the beginning of the Gītā were connected with his confusion about his duty. He was thinking the right thing to do was to abandon the battle and go to meditate in the forest like a brāhmana. However, when Kṛṣṇa explained that his nature was to act as a kṣatriya, and thus his duty was to fight in the battle, everything became clear, and he could master the strength to do so, despite all challenges.
How can we find the same in our lives? How can I find what is my purpose in life, my duty, my natural occupation? How can I find my place in life according to the nature that has been given to me by Kṛṣṇa? When each of us is a complex blend of tendencies, abilities, and desires, and even other devotees offer differing advice, it can be confusing, to say the least.
Ultimately, we depend on Kṛṣṇato know. Just as He guided Arjuna, He is the person who understands perfectly our nature and can guide us in finding our place. The question then is: how can I get Kṛṣṇa’s guidance?
There are basically two ways: We can hear Him from inside the heart, or we can find someone who can relay His messages to us.
Listening to Him from the heart doesn’t always work for us, because although He is ready to talk, we are often not ready to hear Him. Our material contaminations and the desires inside our minds block us from hearing. Often, what we hear is just the voice of our mind, and not exactly Kṛṣṇa speaking.
What about the second option?
Vedic culture is built on the principle of learning from those who are more experienced and mature. Children learn from their parents. Then, as they grow, they learn from teachers, elders, and eventually, from spiritual mentors. In this system, knowledge and culture are passed down through personal relationships. Without such relationships, the transmission of values stops, and society breaks apart. We can see that nowadays many children spend their time on phones, “learning” from social networks, but this is a very dangerous experiment.
True culture means learning from someone who knows more than us, and who is personally present in our lives. A qualified mentor or teacher is not just someone with theoretical knowledge. He or she must also know our habits, nature, and tendencies, understand struggles, so they can help us to practically apply Kṛṣṇa-conscious principles in our lives.
However, for a spiritual mentor, whether a śikṣā-guru, dīkṣā-guru, or simply a trusted senior devotee, three key qualities are essential:
1. The mentor must have spiritual insight, philosophical understanding, and practical life experience.
2. We must have a personal relationship with the teacher, so he or she can know us well enough to give personalized advice and support. For this relationship to be established, service is essential. We need to offer some service (as Kṛṣṇa advises us in the gītā) so the mentor feels grateful and heartily tries to help us.
3. The mentor needs to be a person who genuinely cares about us, and we need to be able to trust him or her. Again, this comes as a result of a personal relationship.
Sometimes we may be able to establish such a personal and close relationship with the initiating spiritual master, but more often than not, the guru will already be busy with too many disciples. In this case, the guru may take the role of an instructor who instructs and inspires us through his classes, but we will have to find another senior devotee who can take the role of a mentor who is closer to us.
That said, no mentor is omniscient. They may have limitations, they may not be perfect, and that’s expected. We should not expect that the mentor (or even the guru) will be omnipotent and will be able to perfectly understand all our afflictions by just looking at our face. Communication is essential. We should be able to explain our problems, ask the right questions, give additional information as needed, be able to explain the situation when their advice is not seeming to work, and so on. The mentor can help, but we also need to do our part.
Even ordinary elders can teach many valuable and useful things based on their experience in life, something that any senior devotee can also do. However, there is something that goes much beyond that, which is their connection with Krsna. That’s where the real power comes.
If a mentor is sincerely connected with the Lord by hearing, chanting, reading Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books, following the process with humility, etc., then Paramātmā in the heart can guide that mentor, revealing to them what they need to do to help us. The Lord in the heart can reveal exactly what needs to be said or done to help another person, in ways that surpass the mentor’s own knowledge.
This is what distinguishes spiritual guidance from mere counseling or advice-giving. A spiritual guide who is connected to Kṛṣṇa becomes an instrument. If their ego is under control and their heart is clean, Kṛṣṇa can speak through them and reveal to us what we need to know. That’s how we can receive Krsna’s messages even though we may not be able to directly hear Him yet, and that’s the process He himself created to help us escape this temporary world.
To come to this level, a mentor must sincerely renounce the false ego. That means giving up rigid ideas like, “This is how I was trained,” or “In my time we did it this way.” Instead, they must become humble servants, studying Prabhupāda’s books, listening to their own teachers, sincerely chanting, and cultivating the desire to help others without a personal agenda. When this kind of sincerity is there, a kind of sixth sense emerges. It’s a spiritual intuition, guided by Paramātmā. The mentor begins to just know what to say or how to help. That’s when spiritual mentorship becomes truly transformative.
How does this fit into the concept of varnāśrama dharma?
The point is that varṇāśrama is a nuanced system. It’s not about reducing people to one of four rigid categories, fitting them into neat little boxes following stereotypes. Instead, varṇāśrama-dharma, rightly understood, is highly detailed and personal. Just like a monitor is composed of countless tiny pixels, each one made of red, green, and blue dots that mix to form millions of colors, similarly, each person is a unique blend of qualities within the four varṇas. There are brāhmaṇas who are teachers, others who are priests, and some who are scholars, researchers, or editors. There are kṣatriyas ranging from local managers to great monarchs like Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira. Vaiśyas may include farmers, cowherds, bankers, traders, or other productive people. And among śūdras, there are all kinds of specialized workers.
This is the vision Śrīla Prabhupāda had: not creating stereotypes, but helping people discover how their particular nature can be harmonized with service to Kṛṣṇa. That’s the key.
Often, we think we must wait for a mystical revelation from Paramātmā to understand our place. But the process is more accessible than that. When someone comes to the temple or comes in contact with devotees, we can begin by observing: What does this person like to do? What are they good at? What are they inclined toward? From there, we can start engaging them in devotional service in a way that connects naturally with their inclinations. As time goes on, we can adjust and refine that engagement. This is a dynamic, compassionate process of engagement through understanding, not through enforcement.
Especially in today’s world, everyone is mixed. Even questions of gender are not so fixed anymore; people are confused even about whether they are men or women. It’s chaotic. But this is not entirely new. Even in the Mahābhārata, we find characters like Śikhaṇḍī, whose gender and identity are complex. Even Yudhiṣṭhira had a mixed nature, part brāhmaṇa, part kṣatriya. So it’s not about being purely one thing; it’s about recognizing a person’s propensities and aligning them with one’s service to the Lord.
If someone has the nature of a brāhmaṇa, loving to study and teach, but we insist that real service means carrying bricks or breaking stones, we are setting them up for frustration. But if we say, “Your skills are needed, come, we need you to teach, edit, write, translate, give classes”, then suddenly they become inspired.
Engaging according to one’s nature not only inspires better service but also enables continuous service. When we are doing something aligned with our nature, we can go on for hours without fatigue. On the other hand, when we are forced into something that is against our nature, that we struggle with, we may not last an hour before needing a vacation. Surely, one who becomes a pure devotee can do anything for Kṛṣṇa, but how to become a pure devotee through a service that is so frustrating we can’t do for more than an hour at a time?
For someone who lacks spiritual satisfaction, who doesn’t have a higher taste, even the most basic spiritual principles are a constant battle. For someone who is starving, even moldy bread thrown in the street looks like a feast. However, someone who has just enjoyed a lot of opulent prasāda will turn away from the same bread in disgust. The difference is satisfaction. When we are nourished spiritually, when we are engaged according to our nature in devotional service, sense gratification loses its appeal.
This is why Śrīla Prabhupāda said that real renunciation means full engagement in Kṛṣṇa’s service. And the easiest, most natural way to stay engaged is to serve in a way that resonates with our nature. When we understand this, we stop forcing people to conform to rigid ideals of what a devotee should be according to our stereotypes. Instead, we help them discover what kind of devotee they can be, which is much more powerful and enduring.
Everyone can serve Kṛṣṇa if we just know how to engage them properly. That is the essence of varṇāśrama-dharma, the heart of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and the quintessence of what it means to be a mentor or spiritual guide.
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