Å›rÄ«-bÄdarÄyaṇir uvÄca
evaá¹ ká¹›ta-vyavasito
dadhyaá¹…á¹… Ätharvaṇas tanum
pare bhagavati brahmaṇy
ÄtmÄnaá¹ sannayañ jahau
Å›rÄ«-bÄdarÄyaṇiḥ uvÄca - ÅšrÄ« Åšukadeva GosvÄmÄ« said; evam - thus; ká¹›ta-vyavasitaḥ - making certain of what to do (in giving his body to the demigods); dadhyaá¹… - DadhÄ«ci Muni; Ätharvaṇaḥ - the son of AtharvÄ; tanum - his body; pare - to the Supreme; bhagavati - Personality of Godhead; brahmaṇi - the Supreme Brahman; ÄtmÄnam - himself. the spirit soul; sannayan - offering; jahau - gave up.
As indicated by the words pare bhagavati brahmaṇy ÄtmÄnaá¹ sannayan, DadhÄ«ci placed himself, as spirit soul, at the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In this regard, one may refer to the incident of Dhá¹›tarÄá¹£á¹ra’s leaving his body, as described in the First Canto of ÅšrÄ«mad-BhÄgavatam (1.13.55). Dhá¹›tarÄá¹£á¹ra analytically divided his gross material body into the five different elements of which it was made — earth, water, fire, air and ether — and distributed them to the different reservoirs of these elements; in other words, he merged these five elements into the original mahat-tattva. By identifying his material conception of life, he gradually separated his spirit soul from material connections and placed himself at the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The example given in this connection is that when an earthen pot is broken, the small portion of the sky within the pot is united with the large sky outside the pot. MÄyÄvÄdÄ« philosophers misunderstand this description of ÅšrÄ«mad-BhÄgavatam. Therefore ÅšrÄ« RÄmÄnuja SvÄmÄ«, in his book VedÄnta-tattva-sÄra, has described that this merging of the soul means that after separating himself from the material body made of eight elements — earth, water, fire, air, ether, false ego, mind and intelligence — the individual soul engages himself in devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His eternal form (īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ sac-cid-Änanda-vigrahaḥ/ anÄdir Ädir govindaḥ sarva-kÄraṇa-kÄraṇam). The material cause of the material elements absorbs the material body, and the spiritual soul assumes its original position. As described by ÅšrÄ« Caitanya MahÄprabhu, jÄ«vera ‘svarÅ«pa’ haya-kṛṣṇera ‘nitya-dÄsa’: the constitutional position of the living entity is that he is the eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa. When one overcomes the material body through cultivation of spiritual knowledge and devotional service, one can revive his own position and thus engage in the service of the Lord.