All actions belong to nature; as such they are neither sinful nor meritorious. They only appear to be so when the ego thinks that the actions belong to itself. All the worlds posited in the scriptural texts are only diverse manifestations of the one Atman or Brahman. One need only shed one’s narrow identity as an individual and see oneself as the Atman, and life becomes free of problems: ‘While actions are being done entirely by the modes of Nature (the gunas), one who is deluded by egotism thinks, “I am the doer.” But one who knows the true facts about the varieties of the gunas and of actions does not become attached, knowing that “it is the organs that are acting on their objects”.’
There are two levels of consciousness, two standpoints for viewing action — that of the soul caught in the web of its egotistic nature, and that of the individual working with the idea of the freedom of the Self. It is really the ego, not the true Self, which is subject to nature. When the self-awareness in one’s consciousness identifies itself with the ego, it creates the appearance of an ego-self, as Sri Aurobindo says.
Through the activity of the ego-self or the ego-mind, Prakriti (Nature) gets Purusha (Spirit) to identify with all its workings. Thus the impure natural or objective consciousness clouds the pure consciousness of the Spirit. The result is that ego, desire, and ignorance come to govern the self, making it the natural being we all know.
Even after the truth has been known, there often remains the strong and stubborn notion that one is the doer of action and the experience of its results. This notion has to be carefully removed by living in a state of constant communion with the Self. Only thus may one experience the bliss of liberation even while living in the body. The seeker must not be inadvertent about his or her steadfastness to Self- knowledge. Inadvertence is death. Inadvertence, delusion, egotism, bondage, and suffering are successive links in the chain of worldly life. If the mind ever so slightly strays from the inner Self and moves into the outer world it goes down and down, just as a ball, carelessly dropped from the top of a staircase, bounces from step to step and does not stop until it reaches the bottom. Knowledge of the Self is extremely subtle and cannot be reached by a distracted mind. It is realized only by noble souls of pure mind, and even by them only through extraordinary concentration.
Source – excerpts from Ego and Desire by Dr D Nirmala Devi in the December 2006 issue of Prabuddha Bharata Magazine.