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Well situated devotees of the Lord refrain from materialistic
sense enjoyment, for they are attracted by the beauty of Tran-
scendence. Forcible restraint by regulative family planning or‘simi-
lar artificial means cannot work very long; one must be attracted
by the Transcendence. One can give up the inferior quality of
enjoyment aS soon as one receives the superior quality of
spiritual enjoyment. So family planning is successful when one is
engaged in the culture of the human spirit.

The vanaprasthas, who voluntarily avoid cleaning themselves
and who allow their beards and nails to grow, no longer feel the
discomforts of these burdens when they engage in the service of
the Lord. And above all, the mendicants who take a vow to refrain
from sex life no longer feel sexual urges when fixed in the
transcendental service of the Lord.

Therefore, in all four of the spiritual orders and the four grades
of social life, devotional service to the Lord is essential. Without
this relationship, all the regulative principles of varna and asrama
become burdensome duties, as they have in the Age of Kali.
When the regulative principles have no aim, the varnas become a
caste system, and the asramas become the business of various
shopkeepers. All these anomolies of the present social system
can be reformed only by cultivation of the human spirit in the
devotional service of the Lord.ss

32 The beautiful white clouds,
freed from all burdens of wa-
ter distribution, floated in midair, like
mendicants freed from all family re-
sponsibilities.

