Mbh 12.206.1a

"'"Manu said, 'When the fivefold attributes are united with the five senses and the mind, then is Brahma seen by the individual like a thread passing through a gem. As a thread, again, may lie within gold or pearl or a coral or any object made of earth, even so one's soul, in consequence of one's own acts, may live within a cow, a horse, a man, an elephant, or any other animal, or within a worm or an insect. The good deeds an individual performs in a particular body produce rewards that the individual enjoys in that particular body. A soil, apparently drenched with one particular kind of liquid, supplies to each different kind of herb or plant that grows on it the sort of juice it requires for itself. After the same manner, the Understanding, whose course is witnessed by the soul, is obliged to follow the path marked out by the acts of previous lives.[695] From knowledge springs desire. From desire springs resolution. From resolution flows action. From action proceed fruits (i.e., consequences, good and bad). Fruits, therefore, are dependent on actions as their cause. Actions have the understanding for their cause. The understanding has knowledge for its cause; and knowledge has the Soul for its cause. That excellent result which is achieved in consequence of the destruction of knowledge, of fruits, of the understanding, and of acts, is called Knowledge of Brahma.[696] Great and high is that self-existent Essence, which yogins behold. They that are devoid of wisdom, and whose understandings are devoted to worldly possessions never behold that which exists in the Soul itself. Water is superior to the Earth in extension; Light is superior to Water; Wind is superior to Light; Space is superior to Wind; Mind is superior to Space; Understanding is superior to Mind; Time is superior to Understanding. The divine Vishnu, whose is this universe, is superior to Time. That god is without beginning, middle, and end.