True liberation means escaping material darkness to serve Kṛṣṇa, not political freedom or material advancement.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.2.26 — November 6, 1972, Vṛndāvana 721106SB-VRNDAVAN [32:41 Minutes] SB-01.02.26_721106SB-VRNDAVAN Pradyumna: Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. [leads chanting of verse, etc.] [Prabhupāda and devotees repeat] mumukṣavo ghora-rūpān hitvā bhūta-patīn atha nārāyaṇa-kalāḥ śāntā bhajanti hy anasūyavaḥ [SB 1.2.26] [break] [leads chanting of synonyms] [break] mumukṣavaḥ—persons desiring liberation; ghora—horrible, ghastly; rūpān—forms like that; hitvā—rejecting; bhūta-patīn—demigods; atha—for this reason; nārāyaṇa—the Personality of Godhead; kalāḥ—plenary portions; śāntāḥ—all-blissful; bhajanti—do worship; hi—certainly; anasūyavaḥ—nonenvious. [02:50] Translation: "Those who are serious about liberation are certainly nonenvious, and they respect all.
Yet they reject the horrible and ghastly forms of the demigods and worship only the all-blissful forms and plenary portions of Lord Viṣṇu." Prabhupāda: Hmm. mumukṣavo ghora-rūpān hitvā bhūta-patīn atha nārāyaṇa-kalāḥ śāntā bhajanti hy anasūyavaḥ [SB 1.2.26] So the first word, mumukṣavaḥ: "it is very difficult." This class of men, to find out, mumukṣavaḥ, it is very difficult to find out. They do not know what is meant by mumukṣava. Mumukṣava means "desiring to be liberated." They do not know what is liberation. The so-called scientists, philosophers of the modern age, they do not know what is meant by liberation, mumukṣa.
And still, they are the heads of education and public leaders. Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānāḥ [SB 7.5.31]. They do not know what is the objective of life; what for the human life is meant. They do not know. I was just talking with Gurudāsa.
Sometimes in the year 1950 or '51 I went to Jhansi, and it happened so that the..., the friend in whose house I was staying, he was a leader, and there was a meeting for Gandhi's disappearance day. So I was asked to speak. At that time I was not sannyāsī. I was asked to speak something on nonviolence. So I explained that violence means if you have got some right, and if somebody by force stops you to utilize your right, that is violence.
That is violence. I have got some right to take something, so, or enter in some room, and if somebody checks me by force, that "You cannot enter," that is violence, and it is criminal. So our land of Bhārata-varṣa, it is not ordinary thing to take birth in Bhārata-varṣa. Just see, practically, how many men, they are automatically circumambulating this temple. Even with a common man.
So in this way, if you study, by nature they are God conscious in Bhārata-varṣa. By nature. Even a very poor man, he's satisfied in God consciousness. He doesn't care, poverty-stricken.
He's satisfied: "Kṛṣṇa has placed me in this position." Neither he cares to know—we have studied—that "Why I am poverty-stricken?" Doesn't care. "Now I am getting some food by grace of Kṛṣṇa." Not very long ago, say about two hundred, three hundred years ago, in Krishnanagara, there was a big zamindar, Raja Krishnachandra. So he went to a learned scholar, paṇḍita, brāhmaṇa. In those...