SB 2.10.4

In the Bhagavad-gita it is said that beginning from the topmost planet of this universe down to the lowest planet, the Patalaloka, all are destructible, and the conditioned souls may travel in space either by good or bad work or by the modern spacecraft, but they are sure to die everywhere, although the duration of life in different planets is different. The only means to attain eternal life is to go back home, back to Godhead, where there is no more rebirth as in the material planets. The conditioned souls, being unaware of this very simple fact by forgetting the relationship with the Lord of Vaikuntha, try to plan out a permanent life in this material world, being illusioned by the external energy, and thus become engaged in various types of economic and religious development of life, forgetting that they are meant for going back home, back to Godhead. This forgetfulness is so strong due to the influence of maya that the conditioned souls do not at all want to go back to Godhead. By sense enjoyment they become victims of birth and death repeatedly and thus spoil human lives which are chances for going back to Visnu. The directive scriptures made by the Manus at different ages and millenniums are called sad-dharma, good guidance for the human beings, who should take up the advantage of all the revealed scriptures on their own interest to make life's successful termination. The creation is not false, but it is a temporary manifestation just to give a chance for the conditioned souls to go back to Godhead. And the desire to go back to Godhead and functions performed in that direction are the right path of work. When such a regulative path is accepted, the Lord gives all protection to His devotees by His causeless mercy, while the nondevotees risk their own activities to bind themselves up in the chain of fruitive reactions. The word sad-dharma is significant in this connection. Sad-dharma, or duty performed for going back to Godhead and thus becoming His unalloyed devotee, is the only pious activity; all others may be pretendingly pious, but actually they are not so. It is for this reason only that the Lord advises in the Bhagavad-gita to give up all so-called religious activities and be completely engaged in the devotional service of the Lord in order to become free from all anxieties due to the dangerous life of material existence. To work situated in the sad-dharma is the right direction of life. One's aim of life should be to go back home, back to Godhead, and not be subjected to repeated births and deaths in the material world by getting good or bad bodies for temporary existence. Herein lies the intelligence of human life, and one should desire the activities of life in that way.