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Śrī Īśopaniṣad
the ass, the swine and the dog, but to attain the highest perfection of life. If we do not care for self-realization, it is by the law of Nature that we have to work very hard even though we do not want to do so. In this age the human being has been forced to work hard like the ass and the bull, pulling carts. These are some of the examples of the regions where an  asura  is sent to work, revealed by this verse of Śrī Īśopaniṣad. If a man fails to discharge his duties as a human being, he is forced to transmigrate to the planets called  asurya  in the degraded species of life, to work hard in ignorance and darkness.
In the  Bhagavad-gītā  it is also stated that the half-self-realized men who in their previous lives could not complete the process of approaching Godhead but had sincerely tried for it—in other words, those who failed to attain success in realizing their relation with God—are given the chance of appearing in the family of  śuci  or  śrīmata .  Śuci  means a spiritually advanced  Brāhmaṇa , and  śrīmata  means a  Vaiśya , or member of the mercantile community. This means that such fallen candidates are given a better chance for culturing self-realization on account of their sincere efforts in past lives. If the fallen candidates are given the chance of taking birth in respectable noble families, we can hardly imagine the state of those who have completely achieved success in the attempt.
Simply to make an attempt for realizing God is to guarantee that the next birth will be in a noble family. But those who do not make any such attempt at all, and who want to be covered by illusion, too materialistic and attached to material enjoyment, must enter into the darkest region of hell, as is confirmed in all the Vedic literature.
Such materialistic  asuras  sometimes make a show of religiousness with the ultimate aim of material prosperity. The  Bhagavad-gītā , however, rebukes them as men called great on the strength of false perfection, empowered by the votes of the ignorant and by material wealth. Such  asuras , devoid of self realization and