When we try to understand the Hindu philosophy, we often come across contradiction and then we feel that the things have to be either this or that but not both. On side the ADWAITYA states that everything is one and the consciousness pervaded everything and then it states that everything is happening in consciousness. These types of statement make things confusing . One of the explanation for that is called 2 different levels of thinking. At Spiritual level things are different and at Transactional level things are different. When the physical body dies we say that the Atman or the consciousness or the SELF does not die. When there is pain or sorrow the SELF has no such things. But in practical or our ordinary man's level there is suffering and pain and loss. The story that I am going to tell you may shade some light on the difference .
Three was this Gandharv named Chitrdant . He had ability to fly very fast with his chariot . He was SHIVA devotee. One day when he was going on his journey, he saw a huge garden with beautiful flowers. He descended and decided to take the flowers and offer them to Lord Shiva in his prayers. The garden belonged to king. Next day when the king came he saw that all the flowers were gone . He called his guards and asked them as to what happened and they could not give any answers as they had not seen anyone entering the garden. The next day the same thing happened . So the king decided to get to the bottom of the problem . He decided to scatter NIRMALY - the flowers which are offered to God are called NIRMALYA next day . The flowered flowered to God have to be treated with respect. So when the Chitradant came next day and started plucking the flowers, he was walking on NIRMALYA ,This is a sin. So he lost his power to fly or disappear. and he was caught and put in a prison.
The flowers that he took were not for his personal use and were to be offered to the God or Lord Shiva . In an indirect way that is for his personal gain. But one could argue that the flowers were made by the God and he was not using them for any personal use and so that should be not considered a sin. But that may be true at Spiritual level , at transactional level he was taking something without permission that did not belong to him and that is stealing and that is a sin and he must be punished. For ordinary person it's difficult to separate the two, but one has to try.
