28
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 2, Ch. 1]
grhāt —from one's home;  pravrajitaḥ —having gone out;  dhīraḥ —self-controlled;  puṇya —pious;  tīrtha —sacred place;  jalāplutaḥ —fully washed;  śucau —cleansed;  vivikte —solitary;  āsīnaḥ —seated;  vidhivat —according to regulations;  kalpita —being done;  āsane —on a sitting place.
TRANSLATION
One should leave home and practice self-control. In a sacred place he should bathe regularly and sit down in a lonely place duly sanctified.
PURPORT
To prepare oneself for the better next life, one must get out of one's so-called home. The system of  varnāśrama-dharma  or  sanātana-dharma  prescribes retirement from family encumbrances as early as possible after one has passed fifty years of age. Modern civilization is based on family comforts, the highest standard of amenities, and therefore, everyone expects to live a very comfortable life after retirement in a well furnished home decorated with fine ladies and children, without any desire to get out of such a comfortable home. High government officers and ministers stick to their prize posts until death, and they neither dream nor desire to get out of homely comforts. Bound by such hallucinations, materialistic men prepare various plans for a still more comfortable life, but suddenly cruel death comes without mercy and takes away the great planmaker against his desire, forcing him to give up the present body for another body. Such a planmaker is thus forced to accept another body in one of the 8,400,000 species of life according to the fruits of the work which he might have performed. In the next life, generally, persons who are too much attached to family comforts are awarded lower species of life on account of sinful acts performed during a long duration of sinful life, and thus all the energy of the human life is spoiled. In order to be saved from the danger of spoiling the human form of life and being attached to unreal things, one must take warning of death at the age of fifty, if not earlier. The principle is that one should take it for granted that the death warning is already there, even prior to the attainment of fifty years of age, and thus at any stage of life one should prepare himself for a better next life. The system of the  sanātana-dharma  institution is so made that the follower is trained for the better next life without any chance of the human life being spoiled. The holy places all over the world are meant for the residential purposes of retired persons getting ready for the better next life. Intelligent