Text 21] The Lord Begs Charity from Bali Maharaja 71
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 astdiga-yoga system,
consisting of yama, niyama, dsana, pranayama, pratyahara 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 Rsabhadeva:
ninam pramattah kurute vikarma
yad indriya-pritaya aprnoti
na sadhu manye yata dtmano ’yam
asann api klesada asa dehah

‘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.” (Bhag. 5.5.4) Thus according to Rsabhadeva
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, varnasrama-dharma is recommended.
The aim of the varndasrama divisions—brdhmana, ksatriya, vaisya,
Sidra, brahmacarya, grhastha, vanaprastha and sannydsa—is to train
one to control the senses and be content with the bare necessities. Here
Lord Vamanadeva, as an ideal brahmacari, refuses Bali Maharaja’s offer
to give Him anything He might want. He says that without contentment
