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Rāja-vidyā: The King of Knowledge
and take a good birth, we will still be subject to the stringent laws of action and reaction. Our principal aim should be to escape the laws of this material world. If we don't understand this, we will become attracted by aristocratic families, wealth, or a good education or a beautiful body. We should come to understand that despite having all these facilities for material life, we are not free from birth, old age, disease and death. To caution us of this, Śrī Kṛṣṇa warns in  Bhagavad-gītā :
ābrahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ punar āvartino 'rjuna mām upetya tu kaunteya punar janma na vidyate
“From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place.” (Bg. 8.16)
Even on Brahmaloka, the highest planet in the material universe, repetition of birth and death are also present. We have to go to Kṛṣṇa's planet in order to be free from this. It may be very nice to be a rich man or a beautiful man, but how long shall we remain such? That is not our permanent life. We may remain learned, rich and beautiful for fifty, sixty or at most a hundred years, but real life is not for fifty or a hundred years, nor a thousand years nor even a million years. We are eternal, and we have to attain our eternal life. That we have not attained it is our whole problem. That problem can be solved when we are Kṛṣṇa conscious.