PURPORT

Hiranyakasipu thought that Prahlada, being nothing but a small boy with no actual experience, might reply with something pleasing but nothing practical. Prahlada Maharaja, however, being an exalted devotee, had acquired all the qualities of education.

yasyasti bhaktir bhagavaty akincana
sarvair gunais tatra samasate surah
harav abhaktasya kuto mahad-guna
manorathenasati dhavato bahih

"One who has unflinching devotional faith in Krsna consistently manifests all the good qualities of Krsna and the demigods. However, he who has no devotion to the Supreme Personality of Godhead has no good qualifications because he is engaged by mental concoction in material existence, which is the external feature of the Lord." (Bhag. 5.18.12) So-called educated philosophers and scientists who are simply on the mental platform cannot distinguish between what is actually sat, eternal, and what is asat, temporary. The Vedic injunction is asato ma jyotir gama: everyone should give up the platform of temporary existence and approach the eternal platform. The soul is eternal, and topics concerning the eternal soul are actually knowledge. Elsewhere it is said, apasyatam atma-tattvam grhesu grha-medhinam: those who are attached to the bodily conception of life and who thus stick to life as a grhastha, or householder, on the platform of material sense enjoyment, cannot see the welfare of the eternal soul. Prahlada Maharaja confirmed this by saying that if one wants success in life, he should immediately understand from the right sources what his self-interest is and how he should mold his life in spiritual consciousness. One should understand himself to be part and parcel of Krsna and thus completely take shelter of His lotus feet for guaranteed spiritual success. Everyone in the material world is in the bodily conception, struggling hard for existence, life after life. Prahlada Maharaja therefore recommended that to stop this material condition of repeated birth and death, one should go to the forest (vana).

In the varnasrama system, one first becomes a brahmacari, then a grhastha, a vanaprastha and finally a sannyasi. Going to the forest means accepting vanaprastha life, which is between grhastha life and sannyasa. As confirmed in the Visnu Purana (3.8.9), varnasramacaravata purusena parah puman visnur aradhyate: by accepting the institution of varna and asrama, one can very easily elevate himself to the platform of worshiping Visnu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Otherwise, if one remains in the bodily conception, one must rot within this material world, and his life will be a failure. Society must have divisions of brahmana, ksatriya, vaisya and sudra, and for spiritual advancement one must gradually develop as a brahmacari, grhastha, vanaprastha and sannyasi. Prahlada Maharaja recommended that his father accept vanaprastha life because as a grhastha he was becoming increasingly demoniac due to bodily attachment. Prahlada recommended to his father that accepting vanaprastha life would be better than going deeper and deeper into grham andha-kupam, the blind well of life as a grhastha. In our Krsna consciousness movement we therefore invite all the elderly persons of the world to come to Vrndavana and stay there in retired life, making advancement in spiritual consciousness, Krsna consciousness.