Well situated devotees of the Lord refrain from materialistic sense enjoyment, for they are attracted by the beauty of Transcendence. Forcible restraint by regulative family planning or similar artificial means cannot work very long; one must be attracted by the Transcendence. One can give up the inferior quality of enjoyment as soon as one receives the superior quality of spiritual enjoyment. So family planning is successful when one is engaged in the culture of the human spirit.
The  vānaprasthas , who voluntarily avoid cleaning themselves and who allow their beards and nails to grow, no longer feel the discomforts of these burdens when they engage in the service of the Lord. And above all, the mendicants who take a vow to refrain from sex life no longer feel sexual urges when fixed in the transcendental service of the Lord.
Therefore, in all four of the spiritual orders and the four grades of social life, devotional service to the Lord is essential. Without this relationship, all the regulative principles of  varṇa  and  āśrama  become burdensome duties, as they have in the Age of Kali. When the regulative principles have no aim, the  varṇas  become a caste system, and the  āśramas  become the business of various shopkeepers. All these anomolies of the present social system can be reformed only by cultivation of the human spirit in the devotional service of the Lord. ■
32   The beautiful white clouds, freed from all burdens of water distribution, floated in midair, like mendicants freed from all family responsibilities.
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