Text 20] What Prahlada Learned in the Womb 61

therefore different from the material body; asrayah—the original foun-
dation;! avikriyah—not undergoing changes like the body;? sva-drk—
self-illuminated;? hetwh—the cause of all causes; vyapakah—spreading
throughout the body in the form of consciousness; asangi—not depend-
ing on the body (free to transmigrate from one body to another);
andvrtah—not covered by material contamination; etaih—by all these;
dvadasabhih—twelve; vidvan—a person who is not foolish but fully
aware of things as they are; dtmanah—of the spirit soul; laksanaih—
symptoms; paraih—transcendental; aham—I (“I am this body”);
mama—mine (“everything in relationship with this body is mine”);
iti—thus; asat-bhdvam—a false conception of life; deha-ddau—iden-
tifying oneself with the material body and then with one’s wife, children,
family, community, nation and so on; moha-jam—produced from il-
lusory knowledge; tyajet—must give up.

TRANSLATION

“Atma” 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 in-
dividual, they are the knowers of the external body, and they are
the foundation or shelter of everything. They are free from ma-
terial 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.”

' 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 atmd 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.
