Remember that karma is universal. We are all part of it; we are an expression of the cosmic karma. The karma of Prakriti is to give us this gross body. The moment we enter into this gross body we are in the realm of Prakriti. The moment we adopt nama, rupa and guna: name, form and quality, we are identified with Prakriti. Prakriti limits the expression of the expansive consciousness.
Therefore, although consciousness is allpervasive and expansive, our understanding and perception of con sciousness is limited to our expressions and experiences, limited by our gunas and limited by our nature, impressions, the basic instincts and the senses.
This mind with all the four components of reasoning, intelligence, memories and ego is experienced at two levels: the lower mind and the higher mind, the involved mind and the discriminative mind. We all function at this lower, involved level in life and rarely are we able to raise ourselves up to the higher, discriminative level.
Once there was a priest living in a village who would go to different homes to counsel people in times of crises. One day he counselled a bereaved family and gave a beautiful explanation of death so that everyone’s spirit was uplifted. On returning home he saw his wife crying because their goat had died. The priest became sad and also started to cry. One of the passersby who had heard his eloquent speech in the morning stopped and asked what had happened.
The priest told him. The passerby said, “Only a few hours ago you were giving a beautiful sermon about the impermanency of body and eternity of soul!” The priest replied, “That sermon was for the other family, not for me.”
The story indicates that even if there is wisdom, when it comes to oneself we come back to the lower state of the mind. Even if there is knowledge, even if there is experience of the higher state, when it comes to our own perceptions and experiences we fall back into the folds of the lower mind.
Often, many of the unnecessary things that we are interested in are only for our own satisfaction. We know very well that what we are doing is not correct, but to facilitate certain things for ourselves we willingly push ourselves in, breaching systems and disciplines, ethics and morality. That happens because of the lower mind, the lower buddhi, the lower chitta and the lower ahamkara.
From the book “Karma & Karma Yoga, Yogadrishti Series”, pg.65-66, Sw. Niranjanananda Saraswati