Questioner: Namskar Acharya ji. Pardon me for not remembering exactly but in one of the shivirs where we had read ‘Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna’ to come to terms with this expression called ‘Adhikar Bhed.’
So therein Ramakrishna was saying that, “now in modern times there cannot be any Adhikar Bhed, which earlier existed in the ancient times with scriptures.” So, what was this Adhikar Bhed and why cannot it exist in the modern times?
Acharya Prashant: There are two times of Adhikar Bhed, one is that comes from the Varna tradition, so that for obvious reasons cannot exist today and should not have existed at any point. So that is the principle kind of Adhikar Bhed, that has been practiced in this country. The other kind of Adhikar Bhed is the one, that Acharya Shankar talks of, “you have to display your maturity, your merit, your preparedness.”
Now the first one has to be discarded because it is based on birth, body, coincidence, a lot of nonsense. The second one, gets discarded in deep love. And therefore, both get discarded. First one has to be discarded right in the beginning, the second one gets discarded at the end.
If the teacher is half genuine, then the kind of Adhikar Bhed that has been traditionally practiced, you will learn only if you belong to a certain kind of birth or family or community. I said, “Even a half teacher would not listen to this kind of distinction, ‘Bhed’ is a distinction.”
