Beyond Good and Bad Actions

Uddhava: "O Janardana, the scriptures speak much of good and bad actions, of virtue and sin, of merit and demerit. Yet the sages say that the liberated one is beyond both. How can this be? Does liberation mean freedom to do anything without consequence?"

Krishna: "Uddhava, this is a subtle teaching often misunderstood. The liberated one is not free from consequences—they are free from the bondage that comes from identification with actions. Let Me explain."

Uddhava: "Please do, Lord. This confusion has troubled me."

Krishna: "Good and bad actions both create karma. Good actions create pleasant results; bad actions create painful ones. But both keep you bound to the wheel of birth and death. The seeker of liberation must ultimately transcend both."

Uddhava: "But surely we should prefer good actions to bad ones?"

Krishna: "Of course. In the earlier stages of spiritual life, one must cultivate virtue and avoid vice. This purifies the heart and prepares it for higher knowledge. But virtue itself does not liberate—it only creates better conditions for liberation."

Uddhava: "Then what does liberate?"

Krishna: "Knowledge of the Self. When you realize that you are not the doer—that all actions arise from the play of the gunas in nature—you are no longer bound by those actions. The body acts, the mind thinks, but the Self merely witnesses, untouched."

Uddhava: "If the Self is not the doer, who accumulates karma?"

Krishna: "The ego accumulates karma. The sense of "I am doing this, I am enjoying this, I deserve the results of this"—this identification is what binds. When this false identification dissolves in the light of Self-knowledge, karma loses its power to bind."

Uddhava: "Does this mean the enlightened one does not act?"

Krishna: "They may act more than ordinary people, but without attachment. Their actions arise from a different source—not from personal desire but from the spontaneous response of wisdom to circumstances. They do what needs to be done, perfectly, without strain or claim."

Uddhava: "How does such a person view virtue and vice in others?"

Krishna: "They see both as waves in the ocean of My energy. They do not despise the sinner or envy the saint. They understand that all beings are at different stages of a journey, propelled by their own accumulated tendencies. Compassion, not judgment, is their response."

Uddhava: "What about their own past karma—the accumulated results of countless lives?"

Krishna: "At the moment of true awakening, the entire store of accumulated karma is burnt to ashes. Just as fire consumes seeds so they can never sprout, so does Self-knowledge destroy the potential of past karma to bear fruit."

Uddhava: "And the karma created before awakening that has already begun to bear fruit?"

Krishna: "This prarabdha karma continues to play out—the body completes its destined course. But the enlightened one is not affected by it. Pleasant or painful results come and go like scenes in a dream. They watch without identification, knowing they are the untouched witness."

Uddhava: "Can such a person ever fall back into bondage?"

Krishna: "True Self-knowledge, once attained, cannot be lost. It is not a thought or a belief that can be forgotten—it is a direct recognition of what you have always been. You cannot un-know your own existence."

Uddhava: "Then what motivates the enlightened one to continue living, to continue acting?"

Krishna: "Nothing motivates them in the ordinary sense. They have no personal agenda, no goals to achieve. Yet they may continue to teach, to serve, to uplift others. This activity flows from their nature as effortlessly as a river flows to the sea. They do not act to gain anything, for they have already found everything."

Uddhava: "Krishna, where do You fit into this vision? If the Self is beyond all, what is Your role?"

Krishna: "I am that Self, Uddhava—the one Self in all beings. When you see Me, you see your own deepest nature. When you love Me, you love the truth of what you are. I appear as separate to guide you home, but home is where you have always been."

Uddhava: "So transcending good and bad means seeing all as manifestations of You?"

Krishna: "Yes. In the highest vision, there is nothing but Me. Every virtue is My beauty; every vice is My energy distorted by ignorance. The one who sees this sees truly. They honor the sacred in all things while remaining unattached to any particular form it takes."

Uddhava: "This teaching lifts a great burden from my heart. The endless calculation of merit and demerit exhausts the spirit."

Krishna: "It does. Religion often weighs the soul down with such accounting. But the truth sets you free. Do your duty with love, offer all to Me, and forget about the ledger. A heart devoted to Me is already beyond good and bad—not because it does not care, but because it has found the source from which both arise."