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THE SCIENCE OF SELF-REALIZATION
practically all men are  śūdras . But if there are simply  śūdras , the social order will be disturbed. In spite of your state of  śūdras , the  brāhmaṇa  is found here, and that is necessary. If you do not divide the social order in such a way, there will be chaos. That is the scientific estimation of the  Vedas . You may belong to the  śūdra  class, but to maintain social order you have to train some of the  śūdras  to become  brāhmaṇas . Society cannot depend on  śūdras . Nor can you depend on the  brāhmaṇas . To fulfill the necessities of your body, there must be a brain, arms, a stomach, and legs. The legs, the brain, and the arms are all required for cooperation to fulfill the mission of the whole body. So in any society you can see that unless there are these four divisions, there will be chaos. It will not work properly. It will be  māyā , and there will be disturbances. The brain must be there, but at the present moment there is a scarcity of brains. I am not talking of your state or my state; I am taking the world as a whole. Formerly the Indian administration was a monarchy. For example, Mahārāja Parīkṣit was a  kṣatriya  king. Just before his death, he renounced his royal order. He came to the forest to hear about self-realization. If you want to maintain the peace and prosperity of the whole world society, you must create a very intelligent class of men, a class of men expert in administration, a class of men expert in production, and a class of men to work. That is required; you cannot avoid it. That is the Vedic conception,  mukha-bāhūru-pāda-jāḥ  [ Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam  11.17.13].  Mukha  means “the face,”  bāhu  means “the arms,”  ūru  means “the waist,” and  pāda , “the legs.” Whether you take this state or that state, unless there is a smooth, systematic establishment of these four orders of life, the state or society will not run very smoothly.
Prof. Kotovsky:  Generally it seems to me that this whole  varṇāśrama  system to some extent created a natural division of labor in the ancient society. But now division of labor among people in any society is much more complicated and sophisticated. So it is very confusing to group them into four classes.
Śrīla Prabhupāda:  Confusion has come to exist because in India, at a later day, the son of a  brāhmaṇa , without having the brahminical qualifications, claimed to be a  brāhmaṇa ; and others, out of superstition or a traditional way, accepted him as a  brāhmaṇa . Therefore the Indian social order was disrupted. But in our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement we are training  brāhmaṇas  everywhere because the world needs the brain of a  brāhmaṇa . Although Mahārāja Parīkṣit was a monarch, he had a body of  brāhmaṇas  and learned sages to consult, an advisory body. It is not that the monarchs were independent. In history it is found that if some of the