Kṛṣṇa has recommended in the Bhagavad-gītā that ābrahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ punar āvartino 'rjuna (BG 8.16): "My dear Arjuna, if you go up to the highest planet, which is called Brahmaloka, where there is long duration of life and all other enjoyments—they are thousands and thousands times better than enjoyment here—but still, ābrahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ punar āvartino 'rjuna, then you have to come again. The repetition of birth and death is there also. Therefore your aim should be mad-dhāma . . . yad gatvā na nivartante tad dhāma paramaṁ mama (BG 15.6): "You have to go back to My planet, My kingdom. That will make you perfect."
So this work, good work or bad work from the material point of view, may be superficially very good. But what . . . how long I shall remain a rich man? How long I shall remain a beautiful man? This is not my permanent life. Suppose if my life is for hundred years, say. I can remain a rich man, I can remain a learned man, I can remain a beautiful man, say, for fifty or sixty or hundred years. But your life is not for hundred years or sixty years or thousands years or millions of years. You are eternal. You have to attain your eternal life. That is the whole problem.
But, that problem you have to solve. That problem can be solved when you are Kṛṣṇa conscious, so that by Kṛṣṇa conscious, when you leave this body, you will no more have to come to this material world and accept this material body or suffer and enjoy thereof. That is the point. The point is very difficult for common men, but this is the point. This is the point. I have to avoid this material existence altogether. That is the point. It is . . . it is not the question of improving my material condition. That is not the solution.
If I . . . just like in a prison house, if you want to improve your condition, you become a very good prisoner, and the government gives you A-class status. There are three classes of status in prison life. Some are suffering the prison life in the A-class status. Some of them are suffering in the B-class status. There are also classes. Just like when some political leader is put into prison, they are given A-class status. But a sane man, a sane man should not be satisfied by becoming an A-class prisoner, A-class prisoner.
So we are, in this material world, some of us are in the A-class prisoner, some of us are B-class prisoner, some of us are C-class prisoner. So to become an A-class prisoner from C-class prisoner is not the solution of our problem. The problem should be solved that, "Let me become completely free, completely free from the prison life." That is the whole problem.
- karmaṇy akarma yaḥ paśyed
- akarmāṇi ca karma yaḥ
- sa buddhimān manuṣyeṣu
- sa yuktaḥ kṛtsna-karma-kṛt
- (BG 4.18)
"Anyone who can understand the process of karma, the process of work, in this way, he is the most intelligent person in this world." Most intelligent person. Not that a person who has passed M.A., Ph.D. examination from the university de . . . offering country. The person who understands this problem of life, he is the most intelligent person. That we should learn. He is the most intelligent person.