Text 39] Kapila’s Instructions on Devotional Service 1219

body as his own, he considers his bodily activities to be like the activities
of a body in a dream.

PURPORT

The following questions may be posed. As long as the liberated soul is
in contact with the body, why don’t the bodily activities affect him?
Doesn’t he actually become contaminated by the action and reaction of
material activities? In answer to such questions, this verse explains that
the material body of a liberated soul is taken charge of by the Supreme
Personality of Godhead. It is not acting due to the living force of the living
entity; it is simply acting as a reaction to past activities. Even after being
switched off, an electric fan moves for some time. That movement is not
due to the electric current, but is a continuation of the last movement;
similarly, although a liberated soul appears to be acting just like an ordi-
nary man, his actions are to be accepted as the continuation of past
activities. In a dream one may see himself expanded through many bodies,
but when awake he can understand that those bodies were all false.
Similarly, although a liberated soul has the by-products of the body—
children, wife, house, etc.—he does not identify himself with those bodily
expansions. He knows that they are all products of the material dream. The
gross body is made of the gross elements of matter, and the subtle body is
made of mind, intelligence, ego and contaminated consciousness. If one
can accept the subtle body of a dream asfalse and not identify oneself with
that body, then certainly an awake person need not identify with the gross
body. As one who is awake has no connection with the activities of the
body in a dream, an awakened liberated soul has no connection with the
activities of the present body. In other words, because he is acquainted
with his constitutional position, he never accepts the bodily concept of
life.

TEXT 39

TH gare fare wry: THT |
AYA AAAS: «| TARR 12811

yatha putrac ca vittac ca
prthan martyah pratiyate

apy atmatvendbhimatad
dehddeh purusas tatha
