“Supposing you do give up _Karma_—that is abstain from it in action, how can you keep control over your own minds? It is useless to abstain from an act, and yet be constantly thinking of it. If you come to the resolution that you ought to give up _Karma_, you must necessarily conclude that you ought not even to think about these things. That being so, let us see in what a condition you will then place yourselves. As almost all our mental states have some connection with the phenomenal world, and are somehow or other connected with _Karma_ in its various phases, it is difficult to understand how it is possible for a man to give up all _Karma_, unless he can annihilate his mind, or get into an eternal state of _Sushupti_ (_dreamless_ slumber). Moreover, if you have to give up all _Karma_, you have to give up good _Karma_ as well as bad, for _Karma_, in its widest sense, is not confined to bad actions. If all the people in the world give up _Karma_, how is the world to exist? Is it not likely that an end will then be put to all good impulses, to all patriotic and philanthropic deeds, that all the good people, who have been and are exerting themselves in doing unselfish deeds for the good of their fellow men, will be prevented from working? If you call upon everybody to give up _Karma_, you will simply create a number of lazy drones, and prevent good people from benefiting their fellow beings.” “And furthermore, it may be argued that this is not a rule of universal applicability. How few are there in the world who can give up their whole _Karma_, and reduce themselves to a condition of eternal inactivity. And if you ask these people to follow this course, they may, instead of giving up _Karma_, simply become lazy, idle persons, who have not really given up anything. What is the meaning of the expression, to give up _Karma_? Krishna says that in abstaining from doing a thing there may be the effects of active _Karma_, and in active _Karma_ there may be no real Karmic results. If you kill a man, it is murder, and you are held responsible for it; but suppose you refuse to feed your old parents and they die in consequence of your neglect, do you mean to say that you are not responsible for that _Karma_? You may talk in the most metaphysical manner you please, you cannot get rid of _Karma_ altogether.” “Taking all these circumstances into consideration, and admitting the many mischievous consequences that will follow as the result of recommending every human being to give up _Karma_, Krishna adds all that is to be found in the teaching that makes the Logos the means of salvation, and recommends man—if he would seek to obtain immortality—a method by following which he is sure to reach it, and not one that may end in his having to go through another incarnation, or being absorbed into another spiritual being whose existence is not immortal.”