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There is a story that goes as follows: A man once lived a long
and pious life. When he died, God took his hand and said,
“Come, I will show you Hell.” And the Lord took the man to a
room where many people sat around a pot filled with food. The
pot was deep, so a long spoon was needed. Each person held a
spoon, but the spoon was so long that the people could not feed
themselves. The spoons were longer than their arms, so —
although the people tried various ways — they could not carry
the food from the pot to their mouths. The suffering was
miserable. The people were famished and weak.
Next, the Lord said, “Come I will show you Heaven.” He then
took the man to a room that was identical to the first: many
people sitting around a large pot of luscious food. Here the pot
was just as deep, the spoons were just as long, but the people
were joyous and healthy. “I don’t understand it,” the man said.
“Everything is the same as is Hell, but here all the people are
so content and well-fed.”
“The difference between Heaven and Hell,” God said. “Is that
in Heaven people have learned to feed each other.”
CASTE SYSTEM:
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
1. All His creation is universally one and the same
to God, and even then, today, Hindu religion
appears to be losing its direction by remaining so
grossly divided in terms of castes and their subdivisions.
What, according to you, would be the
way to bring about unity under one umbrella?
The Caste system as you see it today was originally simply
a division of labor based on personal talents, tendencies
and abilities. It was never supposed to divide people.
Rather, it was supposed to unite people so that everyone
was simultaneously working to the best of his/her ability
for the greater service of all. In the scriptures, when the
system of dividing society into four groups was explained,
the word used is “Varna.” Varna means “class” not “caste.”
Caste is actually “Jati” and it is an incorrect translation of
the word “varna.” When the Portuguese colonized parts
of India, they mistakenly translated “varna vyavasthaa”
as “caste system” and the mistake has stayed since then.
Let us realize that left to ourselves we would suffer and
starve. We depend upon each other — humans, animals,
plants, water — to survive. Let us continually remind
ourselves of the ocean in which we are only drops. Let us
not turn a blind eye to the web Mother Earth has so gently
wrapped around us.
The varna system was based on a person’s characteristics,
temperament and innate “nature.” The Vedas describe
one’s nature as being a mixture of the three gunas – tamas,
rajas and sattva. Depending on the relative proportions
of each of these gunas, one would be classified as a
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