Just as the nails can be pared off many times and yet are still part of our bodies, not different, so is our gross body related to the fine. Just as I can cut this nail any number of times, so millions of times I can shed this gross body, but the fine body will remain. According to the dualists, this Jiva or the real man, is very fine, minute. So far we see that man is a being who has first a gross body which dissolves very quickly, then a fine body which remains through aeons and then a Jiva. This Jiva, according to the Vedanta philosophy, is eternal just as God is eternal.
Nature is also eternal, but changefully eternal.
The material of Nature, prana and akasha is eternal, but it is changing into different forms eternally. It is not the result of any combination of prana and akasha, and whatever is not the result of combination will never be des-troyed, because destruction is going back to causes. The gross body is a compound of akasha and prana and therefore will be decomposed. The fine body will also be decomposed, after a long time, but the Jiva is simple, and will never be destroyed. It was never born, for the same reason.