by Hayagrīva dāsa Adhikārī (ISKCON—New Vṛndāvana)

"The soul can never be cut into pieces by any weapon, nor can he be moistened by the water, nor withered by the wind." (Bhagavad-gita, 2.23) Here Lord Krsna begins to describe the properties of the spirit soul. These properties are antipodal to the properties of the body. We all know that the body can be cut to pieces, burned up, wetted, and so on, and because of this it is subject to pain and death. We are so certain of the killing abilities of fire that we use it to sterilize so that things will be germless. But we have information from Vedic literatures that there are living entities also in the fire. "This individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can neither be burned nor dried." (Bg. 2.24) Here Lord Krsna is stressing the point that fire cannot kill the soul. All material attempts to annihilate the soul are futile. It is not possible to kill the soul by making a hotter fire, by using a sharper weapon, or by drowning it with any amount of water. The individual soul is sanatana, eternally situated.