A thoughtful sage, even while living within a material body, should understand himself to be pure spirit soul. Similarly, one should see that the spirit soul enters within all forms of life, both moving and nonmoving, and that the individual souls are thus all-pervading. The sage should further observe that the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as the Supreme soul, is simultaneously present within all things.
Both the individual soul and the Supreme soul can be understood by comparing them to the nature of the sky: although the sky extends everywhere and everything rests within the sky, the sky does not mix with anything, nor can it be divided by anything.
Although the mighty wind blows clouds and storms across the sky, the sky is never implicated or affected by these activities.
Similarly, the supreme soul is not actually changed or affected by contact with the material nature. Although the living entity enters within a body made of earth, water and fire, and although he is impelled by the three modes of nature created by eternal time, his eternal spiritual nature is never actually affected.
Uddhava Gita Quotes on a True Devotee
During the rainy season the swollen rivers rush into the ocean and during the dry summer the rivers, now shallow, severely reduce their supply of water; yet the ocean does not swell up during the rainy season, nor does it dry up in the hot summer. In the same way, a saintly devotee who has accepted the Supreme Personality of Godhead as the goal of his life sometimes will receive by providence great material opulence, and sometimes he will find himself materially destitute. However, such a devotee of the Lord does not rejoice in a flourishing condition, nor is he morose when poverty-stricken.Lord Krishna Quotes to Uddhava in the Bhagavatam or Bhagavad Purana
Compassionate, without ill-will or enmity to any creature, forbearing, enduring, firm in truth, of faultless mind, same to all, doing good to all with his mind untainted by desires, self-restrained, mild, pure, gentle and pious, without possessions, penniless, physically inactive, moderate in food and drink, with controlled mind, firm, seeking refuge in Me (Krishna), and meditative, careful, vigilant, of a balanced mind, full of fortitude, having control over the six fold waves (hunger, thirst, sorrow, delusion, decay and death), not seeking respect from others but respecting others, expert, friendly, merciful, wise-such is a Sadhu or sage.
He who, knowing my injunctions and prohibitions in the performance of one's own Dharma or duties of life, even abandons them all for my sake and worships Me (Krishna), is the best of all Sadhus.
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