Text 39]
The Characteristics of King Purañjana
1181
TRANSLATION
The woman continued: In this material world, a householder's life brings all kinds of happiness in religion, economic development, sense gratification and in the begetting of children, sons and grandsons. After that, one may desire liberation as well as material reputation. The householder can appreciate the results of sacrifices, which enable him to gain promotion to superior planetary systems. All this material happiness is practically unknown to the transcendentalists. They cannot even imagine such happiness.
PURPORT
According to Vedic instructions, there are two paths for human activities. One is called  pravṛtti-mārga , and the other is called  nivṛtti-mārga . The basic principle for either of these paths is religious life. In animal life there is only  pravṛtti-mārga .  Pravṛtti-mārga  means sense enjoyment, and  nivṛtti-mārga  means spiritual advancement. In the life of animals and demons, there is no conception of  nivṛtti-mārga , nor is there any actual conception of  pravṛtti-mārga .  Pravṛtti-mārga  maintains that even though one has the propensity for sense gratification, he can gratify his senses according to the directions of the Vedic injunctions. For example, everyone has the propensity for sex life, but in demoniac civilization sex is enjoyed without restriction. According to Vedic culture, sex is enjoyed under Vedic instructions. Thus the  Vedas  give direction to civilized human beings to enable them to satisfy their propensities for sense gratification.
In the  nivṛtti-mārga , however, on the path of transcendental realization, sex is completely forbidden. The social orders are divided into four parts— brahmacarya ,  gṛhastha ,  vānaprastha  and  sannyāsa —and only in the householder life can the  pravṛtti-mārga  be encouraged or accepted according to Vedic instructions. In the orders of  brahmacarya ,  vānaprastha  and  sannyāsa , there are no facilities for sex.
In this verse the woman is advocating  pravṛtti-mārga  only and is discouraging the path of  nivṛtti-mārga . She clearly says that the  yatis , the transcendentalists who are concerned only with spiritual life ( kaivalya ), cannot imagine the happiness of  pravṛtti-mārga . In other words, the man who follows the Vedic principles enjoys the materialistic way of life not only by becoming happy in this life, but also in the next life by being promoted to the heavenly planets. In this life such a person gets all kinds of material opulences, such as sons and grandsons, because he is always engaged in various religious functions. The material distresses are birth, old age, disease and death, but those who are interested in  pravṛtti-mārga  hold