If we look for happiness in accumulating material wealth or property, then it’s an endless cycle of aspiration and frustration. The more we make our life simple, the more it becomes natural to be God conscious. The idea is, when life becomes very extraneous with efforts for obtaining mundane things, it distracts our attention away from our spiritual pursuits.
So, when great saints and sages would come to these caves, it would be to disassociate themselves from the modes of passion and ignorance, to detach themselves from the passionate world of greed and lust, and in that situation to be able to completely put their full attention into prayer and the chanting of the Holy Names and the study of scriptures.
– Radhanath Swami