ते तं भुक्त्वा स्वर्गलोकं विशालं क्षीणे पुण्ये मर्त्यलोकं विशन्ति ।एवं त्रयीधर्ममनुप्रपन्ना गतागतं कामकामा लभन्ते॥
te taṃ bhuktvā swarga-lokaṃ viśālaṃkṣīṇe puṇye martya-lokaṃ viśantievaṃ trayī-dharmam anuprapannāgatāgataṃ kāma-kāmā labhante
Word by word
The verse says
Having enjoyed that vast heaven, their merit used up, they enter the world of mortals again. So, following the rule of the three Vedas, wanting what can be wanted, they get coming and going.
In plain words
Gatāgatam — going and coming. Departure and return.
The merit is a balance. You spend it, and when it is spent you come back.
Nothing has failed. The arrangement simply had a term attached that nobody mentioned at the start.
Where you've felt this · with money
The annual bonus arrives in March and by June it has gone into the things it was always going to go into. Nothing was wasted. Next March you will want it exactly as much as you wanted it this year, and you will be just as pleased when it comes.
Going deeper
Coming and going is being offered as the whole shape of a life organised around results, and the phrase is almost comic in the original.
The objection is not that heaven is fake or that wanting things is shameful. It is that a finite deposit buys a finite stay. When the balance runs out you are returned, and the mechanism that got you there is ready to start again.
It is fair to ask whether this is too dismissive of ordinary religious life. A great many people have found real meaning in exactly the practices being relativised here, and the verse does sound impatient with them.
What holds up regardless is the observation about wanting. Getting what you wanted has never yet stopped the wanting, and there is no arrangement of results that turns into the end of the series.