The Supersoul pervades everywhere while the individual soul remains localized—different in quantity, one in quality.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
interference] Prabhupāda: ...ātmā and Paramātmā the same, but quantitatively ātmā and Paramātmā different. So the Supersoul is present everywhere. Supersoul is present within you, Supersoul is present within me, Supersoul is present in all ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls present here. But ātmā is individual ātmā. He is present in his body.
For example, that you can feel what is happening in your body—the pleasure and pains of your body you can feel—but you cannot feel the pleasure and pains of other's body; therefore you are individual. Others are also individual. And the Paramātmā, He is everywhere. Aṇḍāntara-stha-paramāṇu-cayāntara-stham [Bs. 5.35]. [He is an undifferentiated entity as there is no distinction between potency and the possessor thereof. In His work of creation of millions of worlds, His potency remains inseparable. All the universes exist in Him and He is present in His fullness in every one of the atoms that are scattered throughout the universe, at one and the same time. Such is the primeval Lord whom I adore.] This ātmā and Paramātmā, kṣetra, kṣetrajña, is very nicely explained in the Thirteenth Chapter of Bhagavad-gītā. You'll profit by reading that. The Lord says that this body is kṣetra.
Kṣetra means the field of activities. Everyone is acting according to the body he has got by the grace of material nature. So the body is the field of activity, and you or me, ātmā, we are the proprietor of the body. We are called kṣetrajña.
And Kṛṣṇa says, kṣetra-jñaṁ cāpi māṁ viddhi sarve kṣetreṣu bhārata [Bg. 13.3]. [O scion of Bharata, you should understand that I am also the knower in all bodies, and to understand this body and its owner is called knowledge. That is My opinion.] Now, I am present in my body, you are present in your body, but the Paramātmā, or Supersoul, is present in everyone's body. Another example can be given. Just like this house, there are many apartments.
So I am occupying this apartment; another tenant is occupying another apartment. But the landlord is occupier or the proprietor of all the apartments. That is the difference between ātmā and Paramātmā. I am proprietor of the things which has been offered to me by material nature, but God, or Paramātmā, is the proprietor of everything.
That is the difference. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ [Bg. 3.27]. [The bewildered spirit soul, under the influence of the three modes of material nature, thinks himself to be the doer of activities, which are in actuality carried out by nature.] Prakṛti, the material nature, is offering me as I want. She is supplying ingredients. If I want to be human being, then he [she] supplies a similar body, and if I want to become a dog, she supplies similar body. So actually, we are under the grip of this material nature, and we are being pushed life after life in different bodies by the influence of material nature. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ [Bg. 3.27].
How prakṛti, nature, is working? According to the quality we acquire. Gunaiḥ. There are three qualities: the good quality, the quality of passion and the quality of ignorance. So we are being contaminated by certain type of quality, and the nature is supplying me a type of body.