SB 3.32.1
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
TEXT 1
- kapila uvāca
- atha yo gṛha-medhīyān
- dharmān evāvasan gṛhe
- kāmam arthaṁ ca dharmān svān
- dogdhi bhūyaḥ piparti tān
SYNONYMS
kapilaḥ uvāca — Lord Kapila said; atha — now; yaḥ — the person who; gṛha-medhīyān — of the householders; dharmān — duties; eva — certainly; āvasan — living; gṛhe — at home; kāmam — sense gratification; artham — economic development; ca — and; dharmān — religious rituals; svān — his; dogdhi — enjoys; bhūyaḥ — again and again; piparti — performs; tān — them.
TRANSLATION
The Personality of Godhead said: The person who lives in the center of household life derives material benefits by performing religious rituals, and thereby he fulfills his desire for economic development and sense gratification. Again and again he acts the same way.
PURPORT
There are two kinds of householders. One is called the gṛhamedhī, and the other is called the gṛhastha. The objective of the gṛhamedhī is sense gratification, and the objective of the gṛhastha is self-realization. Here the Lord is speaking about the gṛhamedhī, or the person who wants to remain in this material world. His activity is to enjoy material benefits by performing religious rituals for economic development and thereby ultimately satisfy the senses. He does not want anything more. Such a person works very hard throughout his life to become very rich and eat very nicely and drink. By giving some charity for pious activity he can go to a higher planetary atmosphere in the heavenly planets in his next life, but he does not want to stop the repetition of birth and death and finish with the concomitant miserable factors of material existence. Such a person is called a gṛhamedhī.
A gṛhastha is a person who lives with family, wife, children and relatives but has no attachment for them. He prefers to live in family life rather than as a mendicant or sannyāsī, but his chief aim is to achieve self-realization, or to come to the standard of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Here, however, Lord Kapiladeva is speaking about the gṛhamedhīs, who have made their aim the materialistically prosperous life, which they achieve by sacrificial ceremonies, by charities and by good work. They are posted in good positions, and since they know that they are using up their assets of pious activities, they again and again perform activities of sense gratification. It is said by Prahlāda Mahārāja, punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām: (SB 7.5.30) they prefer to chew the already chewed. Again and again they experience the material pangs, even if they are rich and prosperous, but they do not want to give up this kind of life.