Text 21] The Lord Begs Charity from Bali Mahārāja
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extremely anxious to get more and more things for sense gratification. Actually, however, the purpose of life is not sense gratification but self-realization. Therefore, those who are too addicted to sense gratification are advised to practice the mystic  yoga  system, or  aṣṭāṅga-yoga  system, consisting of  yama ,  niyama ,  āsana ,  prāṇāyāma ,  pratyāhāra  and so on. In this way, one can control the senses. The purpose of controlling the senses is to stop one's implication in the cycle of birth and death. As stated by Rṣabhadeva:
nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma yad indriya-prītaya āpṛṇoti na sādhu manye yata ātmano 'yam asann api kleśada āsa dehaḥ
“When a person considers sense gratification the aim of life, he certainly becomes mad after materialistic living and engages in all kinds of sinful activity. He does not know that due to his past misdeeds he has already received a body which, although temporary, is the cause of his misery. Actually the living entity should not have taken on a material body, but he has been awarded the material body for sense gratification. Therefore I think it not befitting an intelligent man to involve himself again in the activities of sense gratification, by which he perpetually gets material bodies one after another.” ( Bhāg.  5.5.4) Thus according to Rṣabhadeva the human beings in this material world are just like madmen engaged in activities which they should not perform but which they do perform only for sense gratification. Such activities are not good because in this way one creates another body for his next life, as punishment for his nefarious activities. And as soon as he gets another material body, he is put into repeated suffering in material existence. Therefore the Vedic culture or brahminical culture teaches one how to be satisfied with possessing the minimum necessities in life.
To teach this highest culture,  varṇāśrama-dharma  is recommended. The aim of the  varṇāśrama  divisions— brāhmaṇa ,  kṣatriya ,  vaiśya ,  śūdra ,  brahmacarya ,  gṛhastha ,  vānaprastha  and  sannyāsa —is to train one to control the senses and be content with the bare necessities. Here Lord Vāmanadeva, as an ideal  brahmacārī , refuses Bali Mahārāja's offer to give Him anything. He says that without contentment