may follow the path of right action (Karma-Nishta). Karma here
means actions performed without selfish motive, for the sake of
the Lord alone. When a man performs actions clinging blindly to
his lower desires, then his actions bind him to the plane of
ignorance or the plane of birth and death; but when the same
actions are performed with surrender to God, they purify and
liberate him.


III

After leaving their bodies, they who have killed the Self go to
the worlds of the Asuras, covered with blinding ignorance.

The idea of rising to bright regions as a reward for well-doers, and of
falling into realms of darkness as a punishment for evil-doers is common to
all great religions. But Vedanta claims that this condition of heaven and
hell is only temporary; because our actions, being finite, can produce only a
finite result.

What does it mean "to kill the Self?" How can the immortal Soul ever be
destroyed? It cannot be destroyed, it can only be obscured. Those who hold
themselves under the sway of ignorance, who serve the flesh and neglect the
Atman or the real Self, are not able to perceive the effulgent and
indestructible nature of their Soul; hence they fall into the realm where the
Soul light does not shine. Here the Upanishad shows that the only hell is
absence of knowledge. As long as man is overpowered by the darkness of
ignorance, he is the slave of Nature and must accept whatever comes as the
fruit of his thoughts and deeds. When he strays into the path of unreality,
the Sages declare that he destroys himself; because he who clings to the