What is the Moksha Dharma that Prabhupada sometimes quotes?

Transcript

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Question, what is the Moksha Dharma which Prabhupada quotes sometimes? Answer, Moksha Dharma is considered to be something like an appendix of the Mahabharata.
It is one of the three sections of the Shanti Parva in the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata has 18 Parvas and out of which the 12th is the Shanti Parva. And this is the longest book in the Mahabharata, longest of the books if you consider each Parva to be like a book.
Then it has three sub-parvas and three sub-books and you could say three and it has 366 chapters. So, the three sections of the Shanti Parva, Rajadharma, which describes instructions for kings. Basically, it’s Bhishma speaking to Yudhishthira of how he should administer the kingdom and follow his duty in the wake of the devastating Kurukshetra war which has just ended.
So, Bhishma is on his arrow bed and from there his interest in instructing Yudhishthira. And then there is the Apad Dharma Parva which talks about how we all need to recognize that while we have our duties in the standard situations, but we all face emergencies and that time we need to recognize the reality and the gravity of the emergency and then choose appropriate ways to respond to it. So, Apad Dharma can be different from the Rajadharma or the standard Dharma which a king is following or which any other member of Varanashram is following.
The second section talks about Apad Dharma and the third section is about Moksha Dharma. Moksha Dharma refers to the section where the instructions are given about how one can attain liberation. So, the Dharmic duties that one needs to follow by which one can attain one can attain liberation from material existence.
So, this is a vital knowledge which is the ultimate purpose of life. So, similarly for us we need to recognize that we go through various stages in our life and Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha these are the four Purusharthas. So, while one is in the householder life especially when one is going through life in the Vedic Dharma then there is time for Dharma, Artha, Kama, but ultimately there is a time when one has to pursue Moksha.
So, Moksha Dharma is often associated with many aspects of the way to live by which one can ultimately liberate oneself from material existence.