The right action always looks strange, the wrong action always looks known

Acharya Prashant
5 min readMay 7, 2020

Following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner: Is there any action that is bad?

Acharya Prashant: No, there is no action at all that is inherently bad.

I repeat this with emphasis: there is no action that is inherently bad.

The only bad action is a misplaced action.

At the right time and right place, killing is wonderful. Coming is wonderful at the right time, going is equally beautiful at the right time. Beginnings are lovely and lovely are the ends. There is nothing that is inherently avoidable.

But if you come at the wrong time, then coming is bad. Not only is killing bad at the wrong time, even giving birth at the wrong time is a crime. But if one is too body identified, then one takes only killing as the crime because the body is ending in the killing. And when one is too body identified, then one does not talk of procreation as a crime.

Right time, right place, right action — only that is not a crime. Only that is not inherently bad. Where does right action come from? You will never know. But you can surely know, where does misplaced action come from, where does the wrong action come from.

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