Bhagavad Gita 4.13

cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ

guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ

tasya kartāram api māṁ

viddhy akartāram avyayam

 

“The fourfold order I designed,

By traits and work, their roles assigned.

Though I am its creator, know this of me,

I remain unchanged, forever free.”

 

My dear Lord, you help each one of us to progress on the one path of life that is meant ultimately to lead to you. All living beings have a common universal purpose: reuniting with you in love by redirecting our loving propensity toward you. Simultaneously, we all have a distinct individual purpose: determining how we use the gifts you have given each one of us for living in this world in a mood of service to you. The traditional fourfold system of social division may or may not be applicable to me in its original form, but its underlying basis still remains relevant: harmonizing my individual purpose with life’s universal purpose remains relevant. 

Bless me, my Lord, so that I can use this basis to better understand my place and purpose in the world. Please, my Lord, grant me the inner clarity to understand what gifts you have bestowed upon me. Give me the calmness for self-observation, by which I can recognize both the things that bring me intrinsic satisfaction and the things that enable me to make a tangible contribution. Help me to find the intersection of these two things: what I feel content doing and what I am competent at doing. Within that intersection, O Lord, lies my life’s driving purpose—one that allows me to serve in this world while I direct my heart beyond this world toward you.

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04.13 According to the three modes of material nature and the work associated with them, the four divisions of human society are created by Me. And although I am the creator of this system, you should know that I am yet the nondoer, being unchangeable.