Text 5]
Bhāgavatam is the Answer
553
although the duration of life in different planets is different. The only means to attain eternal life is to go back home, back to Godhead, where there is no more rebirth as in the material planets. The conditioned souls, being unaware of this very simple fact by forgetting the relationship with the Lord of Vaikuṇṭha, try to plan out a permanent life in this material world, being illusioned by the external energy, and thus become engaged in various types of economic and religious development of life, forgetting that they are meant for going back home, back to Godhead. This forgetfulness is so strong due to the influence of  māyā  that the conditioned souls do not at all want to go back to Godhead. By sense enjoyment they become victims of birth and death repeatedly and thus spoil human lives which are chances for going back to Viṣṇu. The directive scriptures made by the Manus at different ages and millenniums are called  sad-dharma , good guidance for the human beings, who should take up the advantage of all the revealed scriptures on their own interest to make life's successful termination. The creation is not false, but it is a temporary manifestation just to give a chance for the conditioned souls to go back to Godhead. And the desire to go back to Godhead and functions performed in that direction are the right path of work. When such a regulative path is accepted, the Lord gives all protection to His devotees by His causeless mercy, while the nondevotees risk their own activities to bind themselves up in the chain of fruitive reactions. The word  sad-dharma  is significant in this connection.  Sad-dharma , or duty performed for going back to Godhead and thus becoming His unalloyed devotee, is the only pious activity; all others may be pretendingly pious, but actually they are not so. It is for this reason only that the Lord advises in the  Bhagavad-gītā  to give up all so-called religious activities and be completely engaged in the devotional service of the Lord in order to become free from all anxieties due to the dangerous life of material existence. To work situated in the  sad-dharma  is the right direction of life. One's aim of life should be to go back home, back to Godhead, and not be subjected to repeated births and deaths in the material world by getting good or bad bodies for temporary existence. Herein lies the intelligence of human life, and one should desire the activities of life in that way.
TEXT 5
अवतारानुचरितं हरेशास्यानुवर्तिनाम् । पुंसामीशकथाः प्रोक्ता नानाख्यानोपवृहिताः ॥ ५ ॥