Mukunda: If a good man, who is passed through the states of being ignorant and passionate, and he's really a good man, is walking down the street, let's say, in Delhi or Istanbul or any place, any city, and he sees a very young man beating up on a very old man just for no reason at all. He's just beating up, beating him to death. And the old man is sort of calling out for help, and there's a few people standing around.
And as he approaches, he, he begins to get stirred by this scene. And being a good man, he feels the whip on this other human being's back. Now, as a good man, should he not take sides on the two people quarreling and accept it and just walk on, even though he feels something welling up in him, or should he give way to what would be a passionate desire and try to interrupt and stop this injustice, so to speak?
Prabhupāda: The whole idea is that action, either in ignorance or passion or goodness—we have discussed that point—that doesn't matter. That action should be done from the spiritual consciousness platform. That's all. Then you transcend the reaction. Just like, for example, Arjuna. Arjuna's fighting . . .
This fighting is on the modes of passion. Passion. Now, when the, that work of passion, if he does . . . now, Arjuna was thinking not to fight, not to fight, because he thought that, "Fighting with my brothers, with my relatives, is not good."
Mukunda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: So, from material point of view, it is all right. From material point of view. But the thing is that a material point of view, if you do act good work, you have to enjoy the reaction. That is the point. As I have already explained that by your good work, you get good birth, you get good wealth, you get good education, good features of body.