Why you are struggling so much hard in this material existence? For happiness. Why you are after sense gratification? For happiness. Why you want to possess? For happiness. Why you want to become beautiful? For happiness. Why you want to eat so many things? For happiness. You go on. The happiness, your ultimate goal.

But the happiness which you are now deriving from the sources you have manufactured, that is temporary. If you want to become happy by intoxication, how long? That is temporary. Any way. If you want to be happy by sex indulgence, how long? That is also for a few minutes, few seconds. But if you want eternal, continued happiness, then you have to purify your existentional condition, you have to place yourself in the transcendental position, and you will feel that happiness.

From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam 5.5.1 – September 12, 1969, Tittenhurst, UK