True perfection is knowing oneself eternally as Krishna's servant, not seeking merger or temporary material achievements.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Bhagavad-gītā 7.3 — October 31, 1973, Vṛndāvana 731031BG-VRNDAVAN [36:44 Minutes] Bg-07.03_731031BG-VRINDAVAN Pradyumna: [leads chanting of verse, etc.] [Prabhupāda and devotees repeat] manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye yatatām api siddhānāṁ kaścin māṁ vetti tattvataḥ [Bg. 7.3] [break] [00:26] Translation: "Out of many thousands among men, one may endeavor for perfection, and of those who have achieved perfection, hardly one knows Me in truth." Prabhupāda: So, the... English or Hindi?
Prabhupāda: English. So manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu [Bg. 7.3]. Out of many hundreds and thousands of men, kaścid yatati siddhaye [aside:] Thank you. The difficulty is that they do not know what is siddhi.
At the present moment, people are so ignorant that they do not know what is siddhi. The major problem of life, that is unsolved. Everyone is trying to make a solution of some temporary difficulties—politically, socially, economically—but real solution, as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam... [Bg. 13.9].
Janma, birth, mṛtyu, death, and jarā, old age, and vyādhi, disease—to get out of this entanglement. Duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam. This is our real miserable condition of life. We have to die, we have to take birth again, and again we have to become old, and there will be disease. Between birth and death...
Birth is very miserable. To remain in the womb of the mother in a packed-up stage within a bag, and... That is miserable. Biting, the worms biting tender skin.
We have forgotten, but these were the miseries for birth. In suffocated condition... But we have forgotten. So forgetfulness is not solution.
Closing the eyes before the enemies is no solution. Daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayā [Bg. 7.14]. So long you are in material condition, you have to suffer all these miseries, either you become rich man or poor man. You may become American or Indian... The miseries of birth, death, old age and disease, they are all the same everywhere, not only within this planet, but also in other planets also. Ābrahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ.