Text 20] What Prahlāda Learned in the Womb
61
therefore different from the material body;  āśrayaḥ —the original foundation; 1   avikriyaḥ —not undergoing changes like the body; 2   sva-dṛk —self-illuminated; 3   hetuḥ —the cause of all causes;  vyāpakaḥ —spreading throughout the body in the form of consciousness;  asaṅgī —not depending on the body (free to transmigrate from one body to another);  anāvṛtaḥ —not covered by material contamination;  etaiḥ —by all these;  dvādaśabhiḥ —twelve;  vidvān —a person who is not foolish but fully aware of things as they are;  ātmanaḥ —of the spirit soul;  lakṣaṇaiḥ —symptoms;  paraiḥ —transcendental;  aham —I (“I am this body”);  mama —mine (“everything in relationship with this body is mine”);  iti —thus;  asat-bhāvam —a false conception of life;  deha-ādau —identifying oneself with the material body and then with one’s wife, children, family, community, nation and so on;  moha-jam —produced from illusory knowledge;  tyajet —must give up.
TRANSLATION
“Ātmā” refers to the Supreme Lord or the living entities. Both of them are spiritual, free from birth and death, free from deterioration and free from material contamination. They are individual, they are the knowers of the external body, and they are the foundation or shelter of everything. They are free from material change, they are self-illuminated, they are the cause of all causes, and they are all-pervading. They have nothing to do with the material body, and therefore they are always uncovered. With these transcendental qualities, one who is actually learned must give up the illusory conception of life, in which one thinks, “I am this material body, and everything in relationship with this body is mine.”
1  Without the shelter of the spirit soul, the material body cannot exist.
2  As already explained, the fruits and flowers of a tree take birth, exist, grow, transform, dwindle and die according to seasonal changes, but the tree, through all these changes, remains the same. Similarly, the  ātmā  is free from all changes.
3  One does not need to make the soul prominent; it is automatically prominent. One can very easily understand that in the living body there is a spiritual soul.