64
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 7, Ch. 7]
svarṇam —gold;  yathā —just as;  grāvasu —in the stones of gold ore;  hema-kāraḥ —the expert who knows about gold;  kṣetreṣu —in the gold mines;  yogaiḥ —by various processes;  tat-abhijñaḥ —an expert who can understand where gold is;  āpnuyāt —very easily obtains;  kṣetreṣu —within the material fields;  deheṣu —the human bodies and all the rest of the 8,400,000 different bodily forms;  tathā —similarly;  ātma-yogaiḥ —by spiritual processes;  adhyātma-vit —one who is expert in understanding the distinction between spirit and matter;  brahma-gatim —perfection in spiritual life;  labheta —may obtain.
TRANSLATION
An expert geologist can understand where there is gold and by various processes can extract it from the gold ore. Similarly, a spiritually advanced person can understand how the spiritual particle exists within the body, and thus by cultivating spiritual knowledge he can attain perfection in spiritual life. However, as one who is not expert cannot understand where there is gold, a foolish person who has not cultivated spiritual knowledge cannot understand how the spirit exists within the body.
PURPORT
Here is a very good example concerning spiritual understanding. Foolish rascals, including so-called  jñānīs , philosophers and scientists, cannot understand the existence of the soul within the body because they are lacking in spiritual knowledge. The  Vedas  enjoin,  tad-vijñānārtham sa gurum evābhigacchet : to understand spiritual knowledge, one must approach a bona fide spiritual master. Unless one has been trained in geology, one cannot detect gold in stone. Similarly, unless one has been trained by a spiritual master, he cannot understand what is spirit and what is matter. Here it is said,  yogais tad-abhijñaḥ . This indicates that one who has connected himself with spiritual knowledge can understand that there is a spiritual soul within the body. However, one who is in an animalistic conception of life and has no spiritual culture cannot understand. As an expert minerologist or geologist can understand where there is gold and can then invest his money to dig there and chemically separate the gold from the ore, an expert spiritualist can understand where