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Who is liberated?

Giriraj Swami : As in other places, we would go into Srila Prabhupada's room early in the morning and sing the prayers to the spiritual master. So one morning after the prayers, Prabhupada gave a little talk and then he asked, "Why does Krishna come into the material world?" So different devotees gave different answers, but Dinanath prabhu gave the answer that He comes to give pleasure to the devotees. And Srila Prabhupada said yes, that was the right answer, because the other purposes could be fulfilled by other agents but only Krishna could come and satisfy His pure devotees. So after Dinanath gave the answer, Srila Prabhupada said, "Now you are liberated because the Bhagavad-gita says janma karma ca me divyam evam yo vetti tattvatah, that one who knows about the appearance and activities of Krishna in truth, tyaktva deham punar janma naiti mam eti so'rjuna, never has to take birth again but he goes back home, back to Krishna." 

When we would come back from the harinam sankirtan in the mornings, many of the people of Surat would be following the harinam party. But although Prabhupada wasn't with us physically on the harinam sankirtan, he was in the back of everyone's mind. He was in the back of our minds because whatever we were doing was for him, and he was in the back of everyone else's minds because he was the great saintly person who had gone to the West from India and taken Krishna consciousness to the foreigners. So when we got back to the Jariwala house, people wanted to see Srila Prabhupada. Prabhupada would be in his room doing his own work, but sometimes the demand of the audience from below was so great that Prabhupada would emerge onto the balcony and give them darshan from the balcony. The throngs were elated, and so were we.


Reference: Following Srila Prabhupada – Remembrances by Yadubara Dasa