74
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 10, Ch. 1]
TRANSLATION
When the luminaries in the sky, such as the moon, the sun and the stars, are reflected in liquids like oil or water, they appear to be of different shapes—sometimes round, sometimes long, and so on—because of the movements of the wind. Similarly, when the living entity, the soul, is absorbed in materialistic thoughts, he accepts various manifestations as his own identity because of ignorance. In other words, one is bewildered by mental concoctions because of agitation from the material modes of nature.
PURPORT
This verse gives a very good example by which to understand the different positions of the eternal spiritual soul in the material world and how the soul takes on different bodies ( dehāntara-prāptiḥ ). The moon is stationary and is one, but when it is reflected in water or oil, it appears to take different shapes because of the movements of the wind. Similarly, the soul is the eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but when put into the material modes of nature, it takes different bodies, sometimes as a demigod, sometimes a man, a dog, a tree and so on. By the influence of  māyā , the illusory potency of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the living entity thinks that he is this person, that person, American, Indian, cat, dog, tree or whatever. This is called  māyā . When one is freed from this bewilderment and understands that the soul does not belong to any shape of this material world, one is situated on the spiritual platform ( brahma-bhūta ).
This realization is sometimes explained as  nirākāra , or formlessness. This formlessness, however, does not mean that the soul has no form. The soul has form, but the external, agitating form he has acquired because of material contamination is false. Similarly, God is also described as  nirākāra , which means that God has no material form but is  sac-cidānanda-vigraha . The living entity is part and parcel of the supreme  sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha , but his material forms are temporary, or illusory. Both the living entity and the Supreme Lord have original, spiritual forms ( sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha ), but the Lord, the Supreme, does not change His form. The Lord appears as He is, whereas the living entity appears because material nature forces him to accept different forms.