“In other words, to judge another's offense without holding compassion in the heart, and to punish him for it — is that not in itself an injustice?”
Whenever someone's hope and desire are broken, his heart fills with anger, and he seeks to punish the one he holds to be his offender. But is the breaking of our desire or our hope always someone's crime? Sometimes the very nature of a desire is such that it simply cannot be fulfilled.
Chapter 11 of 35 — a single teaching, 1 min in total.
The Mahabharata is less a story with a moral than a very long argument about how to act. Its characters are given impossible situations and are judged not on the outcome but on the quality of their reasoning and the honesty of their motives.
Krishna's role throughout is the counsellor who refuses easy answers. He does not remove the difficulty; he changes what the person is able to bring to it.