The Calm One's Action Is Neither White nor Black

📝Reflection

Karma, from kṛ "to do," means "action" and the trace an action leaves. Śukla is white (good karma), kṛṣṇa is black (bad karma). Patañjali names an unexpected height — the action of one who has reached stillness is neither white nor black. This is not an irresponsibility beyond good and evil but action that does not clutch at results. An ordinary person, doing good, leaves in the mind a trace of "this much I'll get back," and that trace becomes a new bondage. But an act done simply as what ought to be done, with the mind not set on results, leaves not even a good trace and so does not bind. This is where it meets the Gita's action-without-attachment — the freest height of yoga psychology.