108
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 7, Ch. 2]
is certainly comparable to an animal ( yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke . . . sa eva go-kharaḥ ). But even a common man can understand that after death a person is gone. Although the body is still there, a dead man's relatives lament that the person has gone away, for a common man sees the body but cannot see the soul. As described in  Bhagavad-gītā, dehino 'min yathā dehe : the soul, the proprietor of the body, is within. After death, when the breath within the nostrils has stopped, one can understand that the person within the body, who was hearing and replying, has now gone. Therefore, in effect, the common man concludes that actually the spirit soul was different from the body and has now gone away. Thus even a common man, coming to his senses, can know that the real person who was within the body and was hearing and replying was never seen. For that which was never seen, what is the need of lamentation?
TEXT 45
न श्रोता नानुवक्तायं मुख्योऽप्यत्र महानसुः । यस्त्वहेन्द्रियवानात्मा स चान्यः प्राणदेहयोः॥४५॥
na śrotā nānuvaktāyaṁ mukhyo 'py atra mahān asuḥ yas tv ihendriyavān ātmā sa cānyaḥ prāṇa-dehayoḥ
na —not;  śrotā —the listener;  na —not;  anuvaktā —the speaker;  ayam —this;  mukhyaḥ —chief;  api —although;  atra —in this body;  mahān —the great;  asuḥ —life air;  yaḥ —he who;  tu —but;  iha —in this body;  indriya-vān —possessing all the sense organs;  ātmā —the soul;  saḥ —he;  ca —and;  anyaḥ —different;  prāṇa-dehayoḥ —from the life air and the material body.
TRANSLATION
In the body the most important substance is the life air, but that also is neither the listener nor the speaker. Beyond even the life air, the soul also can do nothing, for the Supersoul is actually the director, in cooperation with the individual soul. The Supersoul