Prabhupāda:
- tadā puruṣa ātmānaṁ
- kevalaṁ prakṛteḥ param
- nirantaraṁ svayaṁ-jyotir
- aṇimānam akhaṇḍitam
- (SB 3.25.17)
This is self-realization. Self-realization means to see one's proper identity. At the present moment we are not finding out our proper identity. We are seeing to the body. I see you, your body, and you see me, my body. We have no vision of the real person which is..., who is occupying this body. This is the first lesson we get from Bhagavad-gītā: dehino 'smin yathā dehe. Dehī... This body is called deha, and the owner of the body is called dehī. So,
- dehino 'smin yathā dehe
- kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
- tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ...
- (BG 2.13)
So when we can see that we are not this body, "I am not this body," that is beginning of self-realization. That is called brahma-bhūta stage. Ahaṁ brahmāsmi: "I am not this material body." Ahaṁ brahmāsmi. This is self-realization.
So what is the identification of the jīva, of the soul? Very minute. Aṇimānam. Very, very minute, infinitesimal. God is infinite, and we are infinitesimal, very small particle. Just like sun. Sun is very big, but the sunshine, it is a combination of very minute, bright articles, atoms. Everyone knows. It is a combination of, I mean to say, dazzling, bright... Similarly, we are also a small, bright particle, the same quality. Svayaṁ-jyoti. Just like God, or Brahman, is jyoti, we are also jyoti. But Brahman is all-pervading, infinite; we are aṇimānam. So Māyāvādī theory is that "At the present moment... I am the same." They, their theory is ghaṭākāśa-poṭākāśa. Just like a ghaṭa, or in a pot, there is, within the pot, there is sky, and outside the pot there is sky. So the separation is due to the wall of the pot. If the... When the wall is broken, then the inside sky and the outside sky become one. This is Māyāvāda theory.
Therefore here it is said, akhaṇḍitam. Akhaṇḍitam means not that the sky within the pot is fragmented from the whole sky. That cannot be. In the Bhagavad-gītā also it is said, acchedyo 'yam (BG 2.24). Acchedyaḥ, it cannot be cut into pieces. Akhaṇḍita. That means it is minute perpetually, eternally. Mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūto jīva-loke sanātanaḥ (BG 15.7). Sanātanaḥ means eternally we are small. Aṇu, aṇimānam. And God, or Kṛṣṇa, is vibhu. "God is great" means He, nobody is equal to Him, nobody is greater than Him. That is greatness. God is great. But we say, "God is great," but we do not know how great He is. He is so great that millions of universes are coming from the holes of His body.