BHAGAVATA PURANA

 

"A man sees his father dying and his son being born and infers that he, too, goes and comes like that. However, the Atman (The Self) who is the knower of the birth and the death of the body, beside whom there is no other, is not subject to being born or dying. He is the seer and thus cannot be the seen.

The Atman is like a man that watches a plant sprouting from its seed, growing to fullness, then decaying and dying. The man is not the plant. The Atman is the knower of the body and its changes; he is always apart from the body."