Teachings to Rupa Goswami
25
many such persons who are engaged in good righteous activities for sense gratification some of them come to know about the Absolute Truth, and they are called  Jnanins , meaning persons who are seeking after the Absolute Truth, or philosophers—empiric philosophers. Out of many hundreds and thousands of such empiric philosophers some actually become liberated. This liberation means that theoretically one can understand that a living entity is not made of any of the material elements; that he is spirit soul, different from matter. Simply by understanding this doctrine, even theoretically, one may be called  mukta , or liberated; but actually a  mukta , or liberated soul, is he who understands his constitutional position as part and parcel eternal servitor of the Lord. Such liberated souls, if they are engaged with faith and devotion in the service of the Lord, are called  Krishna-bhaktas , or Krishna conscious persons.
These Krishna conscious persons are free from all material desires. Those who are liberated theoretically simply know that the living entity is not made of any material element. Although they may be classified amongst the liberated souls, they have desire. They have the desire to become one with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Such persons are very much attached to the ritual performance of the Vedic injunctions, and to righteous activities, in order to enjoy material welfare. And even when some of them are out of material enjoyment, they want enjoyment in the spiritual world, to merge into the existence of the Supreme Lord. And some of them are also desirous of getting the perfection of mystic powers, known as the Yoga principles. So long as all these desires are within the heart of a person, he cannot understand the nature of pure devotional service, and on account of being agitated by such desires, he is not peaceful. So long as there is any desire for material perfection, he cannot be at peace. The devotees of Lord Krishna are not desirous of material achievement, and as such they are the only peaceful persons within this material world. This is confirmed in the  Srimad Bhagwatam , Sixth Canto, Fourteenth Chapter, 4th verse: It is said there as follows: “O great sage, out of many millions of liberated persons, and persons who have achieved success in mystic Yoga powers, one who is completely devoted to the Supreme Personality of Godhead and is therefore very peaceful is very rarely to be found.”
The Lord continued to explain that in this way many thousands and millions of living entities are wandering within this material world, and some of them, by the grace of Lord Krishna and the Spiritual Master, can get the seed of devotional service. The pious or religious man is generally inclined to worship the deities in various temples and if by chance he offers obeisances and worshipful respects to Lord Vishnu, even without his knowledge, and he