Prabhupāda: . . . liberated souls. They are never conditioned. They never become conditioned. Yes?
Devotee: You mean they never were conditioned at any time or . . .
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Devotee: You said there were millions of souls . . .
Prabhupāda: Yes. They were never conditioned. They were never conditioned. They are called nitya-mukta, eternally liberated. We are only simple few, this material world. Just like I have several times told you that the prison house. The population of prison house is nothing in comparison to the whole population.
What is that? Suppose in New York there is a prison house. Oh, what may be the number? A few thousand maybe? But here, millions. Similarly, the liberated souls are millions; we are only few thousands, or hundreds. Ekāṁśena sthito jagat (BG 10.42). We are thinking this universe is very great. It is nothing in comparison to the whole creation of the Lord. You are seeing only universe, but there are millions of universes like this. All together, they are ekāṁśena sthito jagat. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. This is only a part of Kṛṣṇa's creation.
One devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa, er, Lord Caitanya, requested, "My dear Lord, You have come to deliver all the fallen souls. You please take all the conditioned souls of this universe, and if You think they are not competent, they are sinful, You can give me all the sin to me. I shall suffer for them, but You kindly take." So this is the desire of a pure devotee that, "All may go with Kṛṣṇa. Let them become liberated. I shall suffer all their . . ."
Now, Caitanya Mahāprabhu replied that, "Suppose I keep your request; I take these, all the living entities of this universe. Do you think, is there any loss of this material world? It is just like a one mustard seed in the bag of mustard seed." So this universe is just like one mustard seed in one big bag of mustard seed. Can you count how many mustard seeds are in a big bag?
So the idea was that Caitanya Mahāprabhu replied that, "Even this universe is delivered fully, oh, there is a big bag of mustard seed. It is only one grain." There are so many conditioned souls, and these conditioned souls are only insignificant in comparison to the liberated soul. Just imagine what is the quantity of liberated souls.
Bhaktijana: How could we make a poor choice if we were part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa? How could we have chosen the material world?
Prabhupāda: Oh, because you have got independence. Don't you see so many students come, they go away again? Yesterday Kīrtanānanda went to call Rancor. He said: "Oh, I have forgotten this!" So you can forget. There is another student, he was also our student, Wally. "Oh, you can go immediately!" Suppose if you . . ."Oh, I don't care for this Kṛṣṇa consciousness Society. Who calls you? You can go." That independence is there. We can misuse.
Bhaktijana: But Kṛṣṇa will always be there if we want to go back?
Prabhupāda: Eh? Kṛṣṇa is always prepared to accept you. He's always prepared. But because He has given us independence, we misuse it and we fall under the clutches of māyā. That is our misfortune. We create this misfortune, and we can create our good fortune. "Man is the architect of his own fortune." So if you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, it is to your good fortune. If you become māyā conscious, it is to your bad fortune. You are the creator.
Bhaktijana: When the souls that were never conditioned at all . . . do they also have the independence?
Prabhupāda: Yes, but they have not misused. They know that "I am meant for Kṛṣṇa's service," and they are happy in Kṛṣṇa's service.