The First Stages of Devotion 25
brahman. Because the brahmana is the head, he has to preach the
transcendental sound, and he also has to eat on behalf of the Supreme
Lord. According to Vedic injunctions, when a brahmana eats it is to
be understood that the Personality of Godhead is eating through him.
It is not, however, that the brahmana should simply eat on behalf of
the Lord and not preach the message of the Bhagavad-gita to the
world. Actually, one who preaches the message of the Gita is very
dear to Krsna, as is confirmed in the Gita itself. Such a preacher is
factually a brahmana and thus by feeding him one feeds the Su-
preme Lord directly.

Similarly, the ksatriya has to protect people from the onslaughts
of maya. That is his duty. For example, as soon as Maharaj Pariksit
saw that a black man was attempting to kill a cow, he immediately
took his sword, wanting to kill the black man, whose name was Kali.*
That is a ksatriya’s duty. Violence is required in order to give pro-
tection. In the Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krsna directly gave His order to
Arjuna to commit violence on the battlefield of Kuruksetra, just to
give protection to the people in general.

The vaisyas are meant for producing agricultural products, trading
them and distributing them. And the working class, or siidras, are
those who haven’t the intelligence of the brahmanas or the ksatriyas
or the vaisyas, and therefore they are meant to help these higher
classes by bodily labor. In this way, there is full cooperation and
spiritual advancement amongst all the different orders of society.
And when there is no such cooperation, the members of society will
fall down. That is the present position in the kali-yuga, this age of
quarrel. Nobody is doing his duty, and everyone is simply puffed-up
by calling himself a brahmana (intellectual) or a ksatriya (soldier or
statesman). But actually, such people are without status. They are
out of touch with the Supreme Personality of Godhead because they
are not Krsna conscious. Therefore the Krsna consciousness move-
ment is intended to set the whole of human society in proper condi-

*Not to be confused with Kali, the demigoddess who is the devastating feature
of material nature. The latter is actually pronounced kah-lee, whereas the Kali
under discussion here (as in the age of kali) is pronounced kuh-ly.
