- . . . vidvān ātmano lakṣaṇaiḥ paraiḥ
- ahaṁ mamety asad-bhāvaṁ
- (SB 7.7.19–20)
(aside) You can sit down this side.
Dehādau mohajaṁ tyajet (SB 7.7.2). So Prahlāda Mahārāja is instructing his demon class friend. They are not demons, but they are sons of demons. Just like you are. (laughter) You are not demons, but you are sons of demons. (chuckles) Is it right? (laughs) But you have no more connection with your demon father. That's nice.
So in some of these, I think Back to Godhead Number 40, Hayagrīva has written a very nice article, "Constitution of the Soul." Very nicely written . . . (indistinct) . . . the demonic principle is they do not give stress on the soul. They are bodily conscious that, "I am this body." And as soon as one is such foolishly conceiving body as self, his activities will be demonic.
Yasyātma-buddhiḥ kunape tri-dhātuke (SB 10.84.13). The demons also, sometimes they have got conception of the soul, they believe in transmigration of the soul, but though they are . . . simply on the platform of accepting this body as self, they have been compared with animals.
So Prahlāda Mahārāja has very nicely analyzed the characteristics of the soul by twelve items: ātmā, nitya, avyaya, śuddha, eka, kṣetra-jña, āśraya, avikriya, sva-dṛk, hetuḥ, vyāpaka, asaṅgī, anāvṛta. These things I have explained in Calcutta. Again we may repeat. These are important points. The characteristic of ātmā, either ātmā or paramātmā, the same characteristics are there. Exactly like gold bar and gold particle: the chemical composition of the gold bar and the gold particle is the same.
So ātmā nitya, eternal. The materialistic scientists, they have no information of the ātmā. They think that this material combination of elements evolves some living force. That is their theory. As such, they think that in other planets, where the atmosphere is different, they think there is no life, because they do not know that life means presence of the ātmā, and the ātmā, the soul, can live in any condition of material existence.
Any condition. Even in fire the ātmā can live, because according to the information we receive from Bhagavad-gītā, the ātmā is never burned even in the fire. It is never moistened in the water. It cannot be cut into pieces. These things are there. This material body can be cut into pieces, it can be burned, it can be wetted in water, but ātmā, spirit soul, is different from this body.