Here Karma is taken as any action we undertake to bring some fulfillment.
We have some desire. We want to fulfill it.
God is complete in Itself.
I don't say Himself.
God is complete in Itself.
Because we are incomplete we want to do something to feel at least temporarily fulfillment.
When God is always complete
so there is nothing more to do, still in divine play God also does.
In divine play, in lila when God assumes some form, God plays.
There is some karma.
But that karma is not with ego,
remember karma is always associated with egocentric activities.
But here it is said as a devotee is also doing some karma,
why?
We have pleasure, we have pain and misery.
We are having some action, we are doing some karma.
Whether you are doing physical work,
vocal, you are talking to somebody or mental work.
Adi Shankara in Vivekachudamani said:
a sadhaka, a seeker, should undertake, engage himself or herself in activities only for one thing:
cittasya suddhaye karma.
You engage yourself in any activity which will be giving you inner purity.
If any activity is creating emotion, unhappiness, anger, jealousy, temporary pleasure, again pain.
It is not to engage yourself in those activities
because it is not creating cittasya suddhaye karma.
If you come to, for example, stay in the ashram you will be given some work.
Do this work.
When the Guru or the guide has given you some karma, some work,
you should always see whether this karma is helping you for your inner purification or not.
Or the way you are working, the way you are doing this work,
is helping you to clean your mind or not, or you are creating some new karma.
When the Guru has given: Do this.
You might have read the book "Living in the presence of God''.
It is a very tiny book, a Christian classic.
It is by brother Lawrence.
He was a cook.
In the beginning he worked in the military, he was a cook.
He was cleaning the pot.
He was living in a monastery.
His duty was helping in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning.
When he was cleaning the pot simultaneously he was feeling, "I am cleaning the mind".
Just you think.
The same karma he is doing, cleaning the pot,
it is becoming meditation for him, because he is feeling "I am cleaning the mind."
Then that karma is not a binding.
That karma is not creating a new problem.
Rather that karma itself is helping him to change himself
cittasya suddhaye karma