CHAPTER TWO
Why Var£§ªrama is Special The number of societies worldwide and the purposes they all serve are too many to list. They may go under different political and social aliases, but in effect they offer the same goal — sense gratification, economic development, and religiosity. There is no true concept of liberation. And while these societies may promote religious and moral values, both those goals are in a free-fall of qualitative degradation that is underscored by the world’s current economic collapse. The net result is that people the world over are destined to lose their valuable human form of life. In other words, the very social fabric that is meant to elevate people instead condemns them. And what else would one expect, when unqualified citizens vote for unqualified leaders, neither knowing the goal of life, how to achieve it, nor any willingness to do so even if they did? But K¥¢£a created this world and the men and women that inhabit it, and He also created a social system to facilitate the goal of life, which is going back to Godhead. That social system is var£§ªrama-dharma. K¥¢£a says, tasya kart§ram api m§m, “I am the creator, the father, of this social system [var£§ªrama].”1 33
