Question: Why do you ask people to get “mukti” (liberation) when it would be better for them to become self-controlled and take repeated births to serve other people by showing them the right path?
Answer by Romapada Swami: Your concern for the welfare of other people is certainly very noble. A very essential quality for a Vaishnava is to carry such compassion for others. A Vaishnava is para-duhkha-duhkhi, he cannot bear to see others suffering. Prahlada Maharaja exhibits this mood when he prays to Lord Nrsimadev that he does not want liberation when so many living entities are still suffering. His only wish was to bring them back to the shelter of the Lord’s lotus feet even if he had to remain in the material world. (Cf. SB 7.9.43)
However, we have to understand that in order to show the right path to others and help them, we have to know the right path ourselves and be in a position to help them. A drowning man cannot save another drowning man; a bound man cannot free another. And we have to know how to serve others; otherwise it may do more harm than good. It is just like trying to perform a surgery to help someone in need, without having undergone any medical training!
Real service to others is to help them become free from all material circumstances of life and to bring them to the shelter of the Lord (as Prahlada Maharaja prays); all other help is well intended but temporary. If one is acting under the clutches of modes of material nature oneself and is bound by birth and death, how can one help others become free?
Bearing all this in mind, it becomes important for an individual to personally follow the instructions of scriptures under the guidance of the spiritual master, and thus try to elevate oneself to the spiritual platform. In turn, one can then become empowered by the Lord to help others on His behalf. As discussed in the above questions, a devotee may also be apparently undergoing birth and death, but he is not bound by nature’s laws because he is directly under God’s protection, therefore he is in a transcendental position, specifically enabled or empowered to help others.
