People who are conscious do not want to trip over or walk into someone else’s karma. By stepping over someone, you are kind of walking into their karma.
Since the physical body is made of physical substance, it takes a reasonably proper form. Most people’s mental body does not have a clear-cut form. They are not even conscious of what they have gathered. For most human beings, not even 1% of the content is conscious. Because 99% is gathered unconsciously, the mental structure is scattered. It is quite a mess. If you can create a conscious structure to your mental form, and you are able to change the structure as per the requirement of the situation, your mind will be a magical instrument.
Your energy body too carries information. What form it takes depends upon what type of information is there within you. The information on the level of the physical body is called genetics. Likewise, there is information on the mental structure, and there is information on the energy structure.
People who are conscious do not want to trip over your mental body or your energy body. We do not know what kind of karma someone is carrying, but when they are sleeping or they are just about to fall asleep, the unconscious play of the karmic structure is at its highest. Because you do not perform any conscious activity, the unconscious activity is full-scale. People who are conscious do not want to trip over or walk into someone else’s karma. By stepping over someone, you are kind of walking into their karma.
Handling your stuff
It is wise not to pick up other people’s stuff because handling your own stuff is challenging enough. This is why once you are on spiritual sadhana, as a brahmachari, you do not hug anyone–doing ‘Namaskaram‘ is enough. We do not want to trip over your karma. Whether it is good or bad, we do not want to take it away from you. When your Guru has evolved a strategy for your specific karma, you should not mix it up with all kinds of people. Otherwise, it becomes unnecessarily complicated.
If you take in too much input from everywhere, the karmic process becomes very complicated. And the strategy evolved for your karma will not work if you keep mixing it up with someone else’s all the time. Why some who are in serious sadhana withdraw into a solitary cave or the like, is because they do not want to complicate things. They understood the complexity of their own karma and do not want to complicate it anymore.
That is why you do not step over anyone. You can go around them. It is also a mark of respect. And apart from that, it would disturb that person if you step over them. If you disturb their energy body, they may not immediately wake up, but internally, it disturbs them.
All this comes from a fundamental understanding about life. No matter what you were doing–you were running a business, you were married, bearing and raising children, fighting a battle–for anyone who was born in this land, there was only one goal–ultimate liberation. Mukti was the only goal. The whole culture was structured around this. Many strategies were evolved so that you do not trip over someone else’s karma. You do not want to acquire anything new because you know the complexity of what you already have. If you undo your own puzzle, it is good enough. You do not want to complicate it.