Selfishness & Selflessness in Worldly and Religious Activities (English Dadavani March-2007)

The worldly view and the Gnani’s view are vastly different, like the sky and the earth. People see actions, whereas, the Gnani sees the intent behind the action. When an action is performed with a selfish intent one binds paap—demerit karma, and if the same action is performed with an unselfish intent, one binds with punya—merit karma. In both these instances one has to return to this world to suffer the fruits of these karmas. Actions will remain right here, demerit and merit karma will go along with you in the next life.This wrong belief gave rise to the self-serving intellect, which is then used for one’s own happiness. Whatever happens to the other let it happen; with such self-serving intellect one has lost the inner peace. This selfserving intellect creates terrible impediments in the path of liberation.