Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 10 Chapter 14 Verse 27-28

Text 27

tvām ātmānaṁ paraṁ matvā
param ātmānam eva ca
ātmā punar bahir mṛgya
aho ’jña-janatājñatā

Translation

Just see the foolishness of those ignorant persons who consider You to be some separated manifestation of illusion and who consider the self, which is actually You, to be something else, the material body. Such fools conclude that the supreme soul is to be searched for somewhere outside Your supreme personality.

Purport

Lord Brahmā is amazed at the gross ignorance of conditioned souls who consider Lord Kṛṣṇa’s supreme spiritual body to be material. Ignorant of the spiritual form of the Lord, such persons also consider their own material bodies to be the self, and therefore they conclude that spiritual reality is to be found somewhere beyond the supreme personality of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Sometimes such fools consider Lord Kṛṣṇa to be one of many individual souls who together constitute a single impersonal spiritual entity. Unfortunately, such speculators are not inclined to hear from the Lord Himself or from the Lord’s authorized representatives, such as Lord Brahmā. Because they whimsically speculate on the nature of the Supreme, their ultimate result is confusion and ignorance, which they euphemistically describe as “the mystery of life.”

Text 28

antar-bhave ’nanta bhavantam eva
hy atat tyajanto mṛgayanti santaḥ
asantam apy anty ahim antareṇa
santaṁ guṇaṁ taṁ kim u yanti santaḥ

Translation

O unlimited Lord, the saintly devotees seek You out within their own bodies by rejecting everything separate from You. Indeed, how can discriminating persons appreciate the real nature of a rope lying before them until they refute the illusion that it is a snake?

Purport

One may argue that a person should cultivate self-realization and at the same time pursue sense gratification for the material body. This proposition is herein refuted by the example of misidentifying a rope as a snake. One who mistakes a rope for a snake becomes fearful and thinks of the so-called snake. But upon discovering that the so-called snake is actually a rope, he experiences a different emotion — relief — and can then ignore the rope. Similarly, because we misunderstand the material body to be the self, we are experiencing many emotions in relation to the body. Upon discovering, however, that the body is simply a bag of material chemicals, we carefully note how this illusion was created and then lose interest in the body. Discovering that we are actually an eternal soul within the body, we naturally focus our attention on that real self.

Those who are saintly and wise always cultivate Kṛṣṇa consciousness, spiritual knowledge, having transcended the foolish misidentification of the body as the self. Such Kṛṣṇa conscious persons go on to realize the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who dwells within the material body as the Supersoul — the witness and guide of every living entity. Realization of the Supersoul and the individual soul is so pleasing and satisfying that a self-realized person automatically gives up everything irrelevant to his spiritual advancement.