Text 277] Sarvabhauma Bhattacadrya Offers Prasada to the Lord 145

mode of goodness. In the material world, the three modes are goodness, passion
and ignorance, and all of these are simply different gradations of contamination.
Unless a brahmana transcends such contamination and approaches the platform
of unalloyed devotional service, he cannot be accepted as a Vaisnava. An imper-
sonalist may be aware of the impersonal Brahman feature of the Absolute Truth,
but his activities are on the impersonal platform. Sometimes he imagines a form of
the Lord (saguna-updsand), but such an attempt is never successful in helping one
attain complete realization. The impersonalist may consider himself a brahmana
and may be situated in the mode of goodness, but nonetheless he is conditioned
by one of the modes of material nature. This means that he is not yet liberated, for
liberation cannot be attained unless one is completely free from the modes. In any
case, the Mayavada philosophy keeps one conditioned. If one becomes a
Vaisnava through proper initiation, he automatically becomes a brahmana. There
is no doubt about it. The Garuda Purana confirms this:

brahmandnam sahasrebhyah
satra-yaji visisyate

satra-yaji-sahasrebhyah
sarva-vedanta-paragah

sarva-vedanta-vit-kotya
visnu-bhakto visisyate

“Out of many thousands of brahmanas, one may become qualified to perform
yajfia. Out of many thousands of such qualified brahmanas, one may be fully
aware of the Vedanta philosophy. Out of many millions of learned Vedanta schol-
ars, there may be one visnu-bhakta, or devotee of Lord Visnu. It is he who is most
exalted.”

Unless one is a fully qualified brahmana, he cannot advance in the spiritual
science. A real brahmana is never envious of Vaisnavas. If he is, he is considered
an imperfect neophyte. Impersonalist brahmanas are always opposed to Vaisnava
principles. They are envious of Vaisnavas because they do not know the goal of
life. Na te viduh svartha-gatim hi visnum. However, when a brahmana becomes a
Vaisnava, there is no duality. If a brahmana does not become a Vaisnava, he cer-
tainly falls down from the brahmana platform. This is confirmed by Srimad-
Bhagavatam (11.5.3): na bhajanty avajananti sthandd bhrastah patanty adhah.

We can actually see that in this age of Kali many so-called brahmanas are en-
vious of Vaisnavas. The Kali-contaminated brahmanas consider Deity worship to
be imaginative: arcye visnau sila-dhir gurusu nara-matir vaisnave jati-buddhih.
Such a contaminated brahmana may superficially imagine a form of the Lord, but
actually he considers the Deity in the temple to be made of stone or wood.
Similarly, such a contaminated brahmana considers the guru to be an ordinary
human being, and he objects when a Vaisnava is created by the Krsna conscious-
