Not only does the Supreme Lord remain totally uncontaminated when He resides within the material bodies of the conditioned souls, but even the infinitesimal jīva souls are never directly touched by the coverings of ignorance and lust they acquire while passing through repeated cycles of birth and death. Thus the Taittirīya Upaniṣad (3.10.5) proclaims, sa yaś cāyaṁ puruṣe yaś cāsāv āditye sa ekaḥ: “The soul of the embodied living being is one with Him who stands within the sun.” Similarly, the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (6.8.7) teaches, tat tvam asi: “You are nondifferent from that Supreme Truth.”

In this prayer, the personified Vedas refer to the finite enjoyer of material bodies (the jīva soul) as an expansion of the transcendental reservoir of all potencies, the Supreme Lord. The term aṁśa-kṛtam, “made as His portion,” must be properly understood, however, in this context. The jīva is not created at any time, nor is he the same kind of expansion of the Lord as the omnipotent viṣṇu-tattva expansions. The Supreme Soul is the proper object of all worship, and the subordinate jīva soul is meant to be His worshiper. The Supreme Lord enacts His pastimes by showing Himself in innumerable aspects of His personality, whereas the jīva is forced to change bodies whenever his accumulated karmic reactions so dictate. According to Śrī Nārada Pañcarātra:

yat taṭa-sthaṁ tu cid-rūpaṁ
 sva-saṁvedyād vinirgatam
rañjitaṁ guṇa-rāgeṇa
 sa jīva iti kathyate

“The marginal potency, who is spiritual by nature, who emanates from the self-cognizant saṁvit energy, and who becomes tainted by his attachment to the modes of material nature, is called the jīva.”

Although the jīva soul is also an expansion of Lord Kṛṣṇa, he is distinguished from Kṛṣṇa’s independent Viṣṇu expansions by his constitutional position on the margin between spirit and matter. As the Mahāvarāha Purāṇa explains,

svāṁśaś cātha vibhinnāṁśa
 iti dvidhā śa iṣyate
aṁśino yat tu sāmarthyaṁ
 yat-svarūpaṁ yathā sthitiḥ

tad eva nāṇu-mātro ’pi
 bhedaṁ svāṁśāṁśinoḥ kvacit
vibhinnāṁśo ’lpa-śaktiḥ syāt
 kiñcit sāmarthya-mātra-yuk

“The Supreme Lord is known in two ways: in terms of His plenary expansions and His separated expansions. Between the plenary expansions and Their source of expansion there is never any essential difference in terms of either Their capabilities, forms or situations. The separated expansions, on the other hand, possess only minute potency, being endowed only to a small extent with the Lord’s powers.”

The conditioned soul in this world appears as if covered by matter, internally as well as externally. Externally, gross matter surrounds him in the forms of his body and environment, while internally desire and aversion impinge upon his consciousness. But from the transcendental perspective of realized sages, both kinds of material covering are insubstantial. By logically eliminating all material identities, which are misconceptions based on the soul’s gross and subtle coverings, a thoughtful person can determine that the soul is nothing material. Rather, he is a pure spark of divine spirit, a servant of the Supreme Godhead. Understanding this, one should worship the Supreme Lord’s lotus feet; such worship is the fully bloomed flower of the tree of Vedic rituals. One’s realization of the splendor of the Lord’s lotus feet, gradually nourished by the offering of Vedic sacrifices, automatically bears the fruits of liberation from material existence and irrevocable faith in the Lord’s mercy. One can accomplish all this while still living in the material world. As Lord Kṛṣṇa states in the Gopāla-tāpanī Upaniṣad (Uttara 47):

mathurā-maṇḍale yas tu
 jambūdvīpe sthito ’tha vā
yo ’rcayet pratimāṁ prati
 sa me priyataro bhuvi

“One who worships Me in My Deity form while living in the district of Mathurā or, indeed, anywhere in Jambūdvīpa, becomes most dear to Me in this world.”

Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī prays:

tvad-aṁśasya mameśāna
 tvan-māyā-kṛta-bandhanam
tvad-aṅghri-sevām ādiśya
 parānanda nivartaya

“My Lord, please free me, Your partial expansion, from the bondage created by Your Māyā. Please do this, O abode of supreme bliss, by directing me to the service of Your feet.”