Question: Please help me to understand the purport to verse 32 of chapter 13 of the Bhagavad Gita. I thought that the soul enjoys and suffers due to his contact with the material body and also entangles himself with the karma that he performs with that body. How is it then that the activities performed due to his contact with material bodies do not entangle him?
Answer by Romapada Swami:
The soul is always transcendental even when situated in the material body. The changes of the body do not affect the soul in the sense that the soul does not take birth when the material body is born, nor does it grow old, die etc.
In the following verse (13.33) the Lord gives the example of how the sky or air, although all-pervading, does not mix with anything. Similarly, spirit does not ever mix with matter. Similar ideas are expressed in BG 15.8 and SB 1.3.31: when blowing wind passes over different objects, it acquires different aromas, but the air itself is neither sweet-smelling nor foul. Although it appears that the conditioned soul is suffering or enjoying the fruits of his actions and contaminated by the modes of material nature he is in contact with, actually he is not touched by matter.
Srila Prabhupada gives the example of one who is dreaming: in the dream one may be experiencing great danger or even get killed and may feel all the attendant emotions, but in reality they are safely lying in their bed. Similarly, the soul is apparently subject to the happiness and distress of material body & mind, but is factually unaffected. The appearances of reality in this world which are factually but illusion are accomplished by the tricks of maya.
