Nainaṁ dahati pāvakaḥ: the spirit soul cannot be burned. If it would have been burned, then according to our Hindu system, we burn the body, then the soul is burned. Actually, the atheists think like that, that when the body's burned, everything is finished. Big, big professor, they think like that. But here, Kṛṣṇa says, nainaṁ dahati pāvakaḥ: "It is not burned." Otherwise, how it exists? Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). Everything is very clearly stated. The soul does not burn; neither it can be cut into pieces.
Then: na cainaṁ kledayanty āpaḥ. Neither it is moistened. It cannot be wet in touch with water. Now in the material world we find that anything, however hard it is . . . just like stone or iron, it can be cut into pieces. There is separate machine or instrument. It can be cut . . . anything can be cut into pieces.
And anything can be melted also. It requires a different type of temperature only, but everything can be burned and melted. Then anything can be moistened, can be wet. But here it is said, na cainaṁ kledayanty āpo na śoṣayati mārutaḥ (BG 2.23): neither it can be evaporated. That is eternity. That means any material condition cannot affect the soul. Asaṅgo 'yaṁ puruṣaḥ.
In the Vedas it is said this living entity is always without any touch with this material world. It is simply a covering. It is not in touch. Just like my body, the present, this body, although it is covered by the shirt and the coat, it is not attached. It is not mixed up. The body keeps always separate. Similarly, the soul always keep separate from this material covering. It is simply on account of various plans and desires that he's making for lording over this material nature. Everyone can see.
The, every living being is trying to lord it over the material nature. That is his disease. He wants to lord it. He's servant, but artificially, he wants to become Lord. That is the disease. Everyone . . . ultimately, when he fails to lord it over the material world, he says: "Oh, this material world is false. Now I shall become one with the Supreme." Brahmā satyaṁ jagan mithyā. But because the spirit soul is part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, so by nature he is joyful. He is seeking after joy.
Every one of us, we are working so hard to find out some pleasure of life. So that pleasure of life cannot be had in the spiritual effulgence. Therefore in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam we get this information that āruhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padam (SB 10.2.32). Kṛcchreṇa, after undergoing severe austerity and penance, one may merge into the Brahman effulgence.
Sāyujya-mukti. It is called sāyujya-mukti. Sāyujya, to merge. So āruhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padam. Even one goes up to that point, to merge into the Brahman existence after severe austerity and penances, still, they fall down. Patanty adhaḥ. Adhaḥ means again comes into this material world. Āruhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ patanty adhaḥ (SB 10.2.32).
Why they fall down? Anādṛta-yuṣmad-aṅghrayaḥ. They'll never agree God is person. They'll never agree. Their teeny brain cannot accommodate that God, the Supreme, can be a person. Because he has experience of the person of himself, or others, if God is a person like me and you, then how He can create universe . . . innumerable universes?
Therefore, to understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead it requires enough pious activities. In Bhagavad-gītā it is said, bahūnāṁ janmanām ante (BG 7.19). After speculating in the impersonal philosophical way, when one is mature, bahūnāṁ janmanām ante jñānavān, when he's actually wise . . . so long he cannot understand that the Supreme