PURPORT

There are two kinds of householders. One is called the grhamedhi, and the other is called the grhastha. The objective of the grhamedhi is sense gratification, and the objective of the grhastha is self-realization. Here the Lord is speaking about the grhamedhi, or the person who wants to remain in this material world. His activity is to enjoy material benefits by performing religious rituals for economic development and thereby ultimately satisfy the senses. He does not want anything more. Such a person works very hard throughout his life to become very rich and eat very nicely and drink. By giving some charity for pious activity he can go to a higher planetary atmosphere in the heavenly planets in his next life, but he does not want to stop the repetition of birth and death and finish with the concomitant miserable factors of material existence. Such a person is called a grhamedhi.

A grhastha is a person who lives with family, wife, children and relatives but has no attachment for them. He prefers to live in family life rather than as a mendicant or sannyasi, but his chief aim is to achieve self-realization or to come to the standard of Krsna consciousness. Here, however, Lord Kapiladeva is speaking about the grhamedhis, who have made their aim the materialistically prosperous life, which they achieve by sacrificial ceremonies, by charities and by good work. They are posted in good positions, and since they know that they are using up their assets of pious activities, they again and again perform activities of sense gratification. It is said by Prahlada Maharaja, punah punas carvita-carvananam: they prefer to chew the already chewed. Again and again they experience the material pangs, even if they are rich and prosperous, but they do not want to give up this kind of life.