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

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.

Wrong action comes from one’s own personal priorities, likes and dislikes, choices and preferences. From there, whatever comes is the wrong action. Whatever you decide and do for yourself, even with the best of intentions, is the improper action.

When you step back and let life function through you, that is the right action. When you step back and let your personal priorities be subservient to something far bigger than yourself, then that is the right action.

So, just do not give energy to the wrong action; to that which arises from within the limited domain of the mind. If you do not give energy to that, then automatically the right action will happen.

The right action always looks strange.
The wrong action always looks known.

Because a wrong action is a repeated action, it is a conditioned action, we have seen it, done it, passed through it many a times before. The right action is…