Before entering household life, one should be trained as a brahmacari, living under the care of the guru, whose place is known as the guru-kula. Brahmacari guru-kule vasan danto guror hitam (Bhag. 7.12.1). From the very beginning, a brahmacari is trained to sacrifice everything for the benefit of the guru. A brahmacari is advised to go begging alms door to door, addressing all women as mother, and whatever he collects goes to the benefit of the guru. In this way he learns how to control his senses and sacrifice everything for the guru. When he is fully trained, if he likes he is allowed to marry. Thus he is not an ordinary grhastha who has learned only how to satisfy his senses. A trained grhastha can gradually give up household life and go to the forest to become increasingly enlightened in spiritual life and at last take sannyasa. Prahlada Maharaja explained to his father that to be freed from all material anxieties one should go to the forest. Hitvatma-patam grham andha-kupam. One should give up his household, which is a place for going further and further down into the darkest regions of material existence. The first advice, therefore, is that one must give up household life (grham andha-kupam). However, if one prefers to remain in the dark well of household life because of uncontrolled senses, he becomes increasingly entangled by ropes of affection for his wife, children, servants, house, money and so on. Such a person cannot attain liberation from material bondage. Therefore children should be taught from the very beginning of life to be first-class brahmacaris. Then it will be possible for them to give up household life in the future.

To return home, back to Godhead, one must be completely free from material attachment. Therefore, bhakti-yoga means vairagya-vidya, the art that can help one develop a distaste for material enjoyment.