11 Oct 2025
1. What is meant by liberation from cycle of deeds or bond of deeds?
[Shri Avinash Kakumanu asked: Namaskaram Swami, This is asked in reference to points 24 and 26 in Part 1, Chapter 1 of Sri Dattaguru Bhagavad Gita. What exactly is meant by liberation from cycle of deeds or bond of deeds? For liberated souls, how does the deed “fruit and deed” thought cycle behave? Is it different from other souls? When You said, I will liberate only My servant, does that mean You (God) explicitly change the cycle mechanism, or does it happen automatically for spiritual souls?]
Swami replied:- If there is a revolving wheel, one may be trapped in it and some other may not be trapped in it. Here, the revolving wheel of deeds and fruits need not be changed for the sake of the second person. A person, who is not entangled in this wheel of deeds and fruits (Karma Cakra) is the liberated soul, who becomes very close to God. The liberated person is not attached to the worldly bonds due to his/her very strong attachment to God. A person strongly attached to the story of cinema is spontaneously detached from the bitings of mosquitoes and blood bugs in a cinema hall. When such a liberated soul is born in this world to assist the mission of God, such soul will not be entangled in the worldly bonds again due to the grace of God on the liberated soul. This context is purely confined to the rebirth of the liberated soul on this earth in assisting the work of God on the earth when God comes down as human incarnation onto the earth.
2. Which came first in the soul’s thought or deed?
[Namaskaram Swami, I seek clarity on the karma cycle. Each deed leads to a fruit, but within it lies a rotating sub-cycle: every deed generates thought, and every thought seeds a new deed. Which came first in the soul’s thought or deed? If environment influenced the first deed, wouldn’t unequal conditions imply partiality? If God initiated it, divine impartiality suggests all souls began the same. How did the first thought or deed arise without compromising God’s impartial nature?]
Swami replied:- The background of this concept is quite different. In the beginning of creation, all the souls were strictly governed by the discipline of God. The souls got bored due to the lack of even a trace of free will. When the children get bored by the strict discipline, the parents will try to give some limited freedom and at the same time, they will give warnings about bad deeds or bad thoughts. At the end of Satya Yuga, God gave limited free will to the souls giving instructions about good and bad thoughts that lead to good and bad deeds respectively. Thought or intention is the source of the deed as we generally observe in this world. God thought to create this world for His entertainment, which was followed by the creation of this world. Of course, apart from this fundamental concept, an additional concept is also to be noted, which does not contradict the fundamental concept. The additional concept is that the concentration of a thought leads to strengthening of its corresponding deed and it is also true that the long experience of the deed strengthens the thought further and further. Both thought and deed are mutually complimentary to each other (Karmānusāriṇī buddhiḥ, karma buddhyanusāri ca).
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