Urmila Devi Dasi, a long-time educator, author, and practitioner within the international Society for Krishna Consciousness. Known for her thoughtful and scholarly approach to Vedic teachings, she has spent decades exploring the practical application of dharma, education, and devotional service.
In this conversation, we delve into Urmila Devi Dasi’s interpretation of the principles and vision of ISKCON’s Founder-Acharya, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, particularly in relation to the varnasrama system. With the release of her new book, Career Dharma, she offers a fresh and accessible look at how individuals can discover and live their unique calling within the framework of devotional life — not as a rigid system, but as a dynamic, personal path aligned with both one’s nature (svabhava) and spiritual aspiration.
In this interview, Urmila Devi Dasi shares her insights on how varnasrama can be understood and implemented in the modern world in harmony with Srila Prabhupada’s teachings, and how Career Dharma serves as a practical guide for seekers across the globe.
Interviewer: My first question is: How did Srila Prabhupada envision the integration of varnasrama within the educational system for ISKCON devotees?
Urmila D.D.: I don’t know if I can speak to ISKCON devotees specifically, but the first asrama is the brahmacari asrama, when you go to school. Srila Prabhupada says in the Second Canto that this training was for teaching the higher values of life and specific training for a livelihood.
When Srila Prabhupada talked about the brahmacari asrama in 1976, in Mumbai, on the verses in the Seventh Canto that deal with the brahmacari, he went back and forth between the gurukul for children and the brahmacari asramas in temples. He was equating them. When we’re training our children or when people come to us for initial training, we should help them understand what their varna is and train them in their varna.
Some people in the brahmacari asrama will not become grhasthas. In that case, it would be a good idea to train them to become vanaprasthas and sannyasis. As far as the world, Srila Prabhupada also envisioned that the educational systems for children in the world would include training in your varna, which, again, ascertaining of what your varna is, because the training is somewhat different for each varna—not only in the skills, but the dharma of each one is different.
And then ongoing education for adults. We have ongoing education for adults in the sastra and sadhana, but also ongoing education in both your varna and your asrama. We have the Grhastha division team in North America that has this preparation course for the grhastha asrama, like for people who are planning to marry, or in the first few years of marriage. And mentoring courses for those who want to mentor newly married people for the first few years of their marriage.
And Prabhupada talked about not getting people married until they had counselling. And then people should get training in parenting. There’s one statement Prabhupada said, “Why do you need training for this? You learn it from your family.” But today, if we learn from our family, that might not be the best way to go about it. Not everybody’s going to be able to learn from their family.
In most occupations in the world, there is some continuing education in your occupation, where you take some sort of in-service training. Some continuing education, again, varna-specific, and then, to some degree, career-specific within the varnas.
Then, when someone becomes a vanaprastha, we should have some training also on how to enter the vanaprastha asrama. What does that mean? How do you live? Then the vanaprastha people can be some of the main people who are giving education in the grhastha asrama, giving education in the brahmacari asrama, and giving education in the different varnas according to their own life experience.
And then, for those who take some sannyasa, which is not going to be everybody, again, training in preparation. We’re kind of doing that now. For people who take sannyasa, how to enter the sannyasa asrama, how to let go, then, of your varna identification.
Interviewer: Is ISKCON now educating devotees as brahmanas by having Bhakti-sastri, etc.?
Urmila D.D.: Those have nothing to do with being brahmanas; those have to do with being devotees. And they have nothing to do with being brahmanas in the varna sense at all.
Interviewer: One of the occupations of a brahmana is that you study sastra and you teach sastra.
Urmila D.D.: If you’re doing that as your livelihood, those are brahmanical livelihoods, but all devotees should study sastra and teach sastra as part of being devotees.
You have some aspects of each varna, which—and there’s a statement to this effect, trying to remember exactly where it is—but there’s a statement, either in sastra by one of our authorities, one of our acaryas, that there are certain aspects of each varna that are the same as bhakti. Prabhupada says in the Bhagavatam that the service attitude of the sudras is like bhakti. If you’re going to be training sudras in service, that would be the same as you’re training people in bhakti service.
And brahmanas, as you may know, there’s those six occupations that Prabhupada quotes: studying sastra, teaching sastra, worshipping the Deities, teaching others to worship the Deities, collecting charity, giving in charity. But everybody’s supposed to give in charity, Krishna says, but not as a livelihood. Like, if you have a livelihood as a fundraiser and a livelihood of redistributing that charity, that’s a brahmanical occupation. But Krishna says in the eighteenth chapter, everyone should give in charity.
And if you’re a full-time pujari, then that’s your service. You’re on the altar three times a day, six, seven days a week. Then that’s a brahmanical occupation. If you come and dress the Deities one evening a week, then that’s just part of your bhakti.
And for the ksatriyas, they’re protecting people. That’s also part of bhakti. That’s doing service for the devotees and the people in general. And then the vaisyas are taking care of Laksmi-devi. We always say, if you want to please Krishna, please Radharani first. Each of the varnas has some aspect that is very much like bhakti.
I see that this situation is Krishna’s intelligence, because unless somebody does something in bhakti, they’re stuck in the cycle of karma. You want to be happy in the world. You want to make money. You want to be prosperous. You want to contribute to society. To do that, here’s your dharma, and, oh, look at that—some parts of your dharma include bhakti. Does that make sense?
Interviewer: Makes sense. But what I see is that the inclination of the devotees, or their priority, is to have financial stability.
Urmila D.D.: That’s everybody. It’s not just devotees.
Interviewer: Devotees want to work and live in a devotee community and have financial stability. And these two things seem not very compatible. And that’s what causes the problem.
Urmila D.D.: That’s the problem because we haven’t trained devotees that you can go out into the world as a devotee and that your work can still be devotional service. We discouraged the devotees from doing that.
We’re okay if people who are already financially stable and successful in their careers become devotees and then stay in their careers and have influence in their careers somehow. We didn’t use to be—in the early days of ISKCON, we would tell them to drop everything and move into the asrama. I’d say, the last maybe 10–20 years, we’ve been fine to preach sthane sthitah. You can stay in your place and be a devotee.
But when people joined earlier and gave up that kind of life, we, or for our youth, we’re much more hesitant to say, “Work in the world as a devotee.” And then you have this problem: “How do I just live in a devotee community that’s very small and has very few opportunities, and have some means of livelihood?” And the answer for most people is, you probably can’t. And maybe you can’t because that’s not what we’re supposed to do. Maybe we’re supposed to infiltrate society as devotees. Maybe we’re supposed to make the world Krishna conscious, not just—if you think about it, it doesn’t make any sense if I’m just supposed to go out in the world and convince other people to stay in their position and become a devotee, but I’m not willing to be a devotee in their position.
Interviewer: But do you agree that’s the current reality of a problem?
Urmila D.D.: Yes.