Bhagavad Gita 18.17
यस्य नाहङ्कृतो भावो बुद्धिर्यस्य न लिप्यते । हत्वापि स इमाँल्लोकान्न हन्ति न निबध्यते ॥
yasya nāhaṅkṛto bhāvo buddhir yasya na lipyate / hatvāpi sa imāṃl lokān na hanti na nibadhyate
Translation
He whose disposition is not ego-driven, whose understanding is not smeared, though he slay these worlds, slays not, nor is bound.
Reflection
If your inward grip on results loosened completely, which act would still feel heavy and why?
Read this verse in its chapter: Chapter Eighteen
The audacious counterclaim. If the inner architecture is clean, anahankrita bhava, no I-as-doer claim, and na lipyate buddhi, the intellect unstained by appropriation, then even an act as drastic as killing does not produce the karmic accounting that killing normally produces. Krishna is not licensing violence. He is exposing the actual mechanism of binding. What binds is not the act; it is the I-claim wrapped around the act. Take the I-claim out, do the same act as a transparent instrument of duty and dharma, and the bondage does not form. This is the metaphysical permission slip for Arjuna's specific situation, and it is delivered without softening.