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Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 7, Ch. 5]
nothing practical. Prahlāda Mahārāja, however, being an exalted devotee, had acquired all the qualities of education.
yasyāsti bhaktir bhagavaty akiñcanā sarvair guṇais tatra samāsate surāḥ harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā manorathenāsati dhāvato bahiḥ
“One who has unflinching devotional faith in Kṛṣṇa consistently manifests all the good qualities of Kṛṣṇa and the demigods. However, he who has no devotion to the Supreme Personality of Godhead has no good qualifications because he is engaged by mental concoction in material existence, which is the external feature of the Lord.” ( Bhāg.  5.18.12) So-called educated philosophers and scientists who are simply on the mental platform cannot distinguish between what is actually  sat , eternal, and what is  asat , temporary. The Vedic injunction is  asato mā jyotir gama : everyone should give up the platform of temporary existence and approach the eternal platform. The soul is eternal, and topics concerning the eternal soul are actually knowledge. Elsewhere it is said,  apaśyatām ātma-tattvaṁ gṛheṣu gṛha-medhinām : those who are attached to the bodily conception of life and who thus stick to life as a  gṛhastha , or householder, on the platform of material sense enjoyment, cannot see the welfare of the eternal soul. Prahlāda Mahārāja confirmed this by saying that if one wants success in life, he should immediately understand from the right sources what his self-interest is and how he should mold his life in spiritual consciousness. One should understand himself to be part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa and thus completely take shelter of His lotus feet for guaranteed spiritual success. Everyone in the material world is in the bodily conception, struggling hard for existence, life after life. Prahlāda Mahārāja therefore recommended that to stop this material condition of repeated birth and death, one should go to the forest ( vana ).
In the  vaṇāśrama  system, one first becomes a  brahmacārī , then a  gṛhastha , a  vānaprastha  and finally a  sannyāsī . Going to the forest means accepting  vānaprastha  life, which is between  gṛhastha  life and  sannyāsa . As confirmed in the  Viṣṇu Purāṇa  (3.8.9),  vaṇāśra-mācāravatā puruṣeṇa paraḥ pumān viṣṇur ārādhyate : by accepting the institution of  vaṇa  and  āśrama , one can very easily elevate himself to