In this episode of “5 Minutes,” Dr. Robert Svoboda explores the relationship between ends and means and the karmic importance of the actions we take.

There is an old saying in English: “The end justifies the means.” This was a saying that Vimalananda strongly disagreed with. He would often say that the end cannot possibly justify the means because the end is the means.

What he meant was that whatever means you use to achieve a particular goal are themselves karmas. Those karmas will have consequences and reactions that affect you, regardless of what happens afterward.

Just because you believe a goal is desirable does not mean that you can do anything necessary to achieve it. Even if the goal appears to be extremely beneficial, the actions used to reach that goal still create their own effects.

There have been many examples of this throughout history and from many different perspectives. Vimalananda was speaking particularly during the 1970s and early 1980s, and he often discussed communism as an example.

He said that the ideal behind communism was attractive: that everyone should be cared for properly and that society should support all people. But he believed that the methods used in many communist systems created enormous problems. These included violence, eliminating those considered undesirable, and even situations where children were encouraged to report or harm their own parents.

He explained that if you destroy the connection with your ancestors and the continuity between generations, you destroy an important connection between the past and the future.

At the time when Vimalananda was discussing this, communism appeared to many people to be a permanent force. But eventually many communist systems collapsed, and the contradictions within those systems became impossible to ignore.

From this larger perspective, and even from the perspective of individual lives, the end does not justify the means.

Even today, conflicts occur because people believe their nations or communities must be protected. Sometimes they conclude that aggressive warfare is the only method available. But aggressive warfare is an extremely violent karma, and that karma will eventually return to those who create it, regardless of whether they believe their goal is justified.

Even when the means themselves appear good, if they are not the appropriate means, the results may still become harmful.

It is very easy to become attached to a theory or an idea that seems desirable. Once someone believes strongly in that idea, they may begin acting as though the goal is so important that any action is acceptable. But without carefully considering the consequences of those actions, problems will inevitably arise.

A few years ago, I was walking on a mountain in Vermont, and on a piece of rock along the path someone had written: “No abstraction without good will.”

This is another way of expressing the same principle. When you create an abstraction, you may see a result that appears desirable and decide that you must move toward it regardless of the path you take. But if you lose goodwill and stop considering what is genuinely beneficial for everyone involved, you can create great harm.

One example is what happened in Australia, Canada, and the United States when Indigenous children were removed from their families and placed in residential schools with the intention of changing them into members of the dominant society. Those involved believed they were creating a particular result, but they failed to recognize the suffering and damage caused to those human beings.

So always remember: the end does not justify the means.

The end is the means.