64 Srimad-Bhagavatam [Canto 7, Ch. 7

svarnam—gold; yatha—just as; graévasu—in the stones of gold ore;
hema-karah—the expert who knows about gold; ksetresu—in the gold
mines; yogaih—by various processes; tat-abhijfiah—an expert who can
understand where gold is; Gpnuyat—very easily obtains; ksetresu—
within the material fields; dehesu—the human bodies and all the rest of
the 8,400,000 different bodily forms; tatha—similarly; atma-yogaih—
by spiritual processes; adhydtma-vit—one who is expert in understand-
ing the distinction between spirit and matter; brahma-gatim—perfec-
tion in spiritual life; Jabheta—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 par-
ticle 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 janis, philosophers and scientists,
cannot understand the existence of the soul within the body because they
are lacking in spiritual knowledge. The Vedas enjoin, tad-vijidnartham
sa gurum evabhigacchet: 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-abhijrah. 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 under-
stand. As an expert minerologist or geologist can understand where there
is gold and can then invest his money to dig there and chemically sepa-
rate the gold from the ore, an expert spiritualist can understand where
