- 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, brāhmin. In those . . . brāhmin, they voluntarily accept poverty. They don't care. So Raja Krishnachandra came to him and asked him, "Paṇḍitjī, can I help you in some way?" He replied . . . he replied: "I don't require any help from you." "No, I see that you are very poverty-stricken." "No, I am not poverty-stricken. My students get some rice for me, and my wife cooks it, and I get some . . ." There was a tamarind tree. "So I get some tamarind leaves. So it is very nice. I don't require any help." You see?
This is India's . . . Cāṇakya Paṇḍita, he was the greatest scholar, politician. He was prime minister of Mahārāja emperor Candragupta, under whose name the Cāṇakya Purī is going on. He was living in a cottage, not accepting any salary. And as soon as Mahārāja Candragupta wanted some explanation,immediately resigned. This is the standard of persons who are born in India. Vyāsadeva—who can be greater scholar than Vyāsadeva? He has written . . . his last contribution is Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and each word, if you study for hundreds of years, still, you have to understand. Each word. Such a scholar. He was living in a cottage.