Right action is nothing more and nothing less than acting according to the blueprint, the dharma, the laws as meant by all power, all knowledge that is also called īśvara. If there is no tension with life around me, I will easily be happy.

This resulting beneficial influence remains invisible, adṛṣṭa, until it later manifests itself as sukham, a pleasant, desirable event, feeling, or situation. Every pleasant, favorable situation is the result of puṇya karma.

For believers who long for the happiness of heaven, puṇya can lead to other lokas as svarga loka (heaven), or a heavenly state in the mind. Since every action is limited, the favorable result puṇya does come to an end. In the same way, puṇya also works out to the type of relative happiness that a person desires. In today’s consumer culture, good karma is seen as having a dry house with an overly decorated house, and at least two holidays a year. That is the ‘paradise on earth’. Half the time people are afraid of losing this.

For the one who ‘wants to know’, puṇya works differently. Such a person becomes a sincere seeker. Only sincere seekers, who are willing to put everything aside for freedom, will succeed. Initially, such a person is told that he or she must connect to the universal values of dharma because he or she wants to understand īśvara. Because īśvara is that which is ‘always’ good (śiva), a knowledge seeker will slowly qualify for the ‘permanent’ freedom of himself by surrendering to ‘god’. This person will recognize that impermanent good actions also bring impermanent good results. If this person knows how to suspend his personal states enough and strives for knowledge, the complete knowledge will come through a means of knowledge as vedānta in the person of a teacher, and ignorance can dissolve.