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#acharyaprashant
Video Information: 15.06.24
Context:
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
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#acharyaprashant
Video Information: 15.06.24
Context:
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00What is it to go desireless for those who have not achieved anything in this world?
00:12What will be our relationship with this world then?
00:16Is desirelessness only for those whose all needs are already fulfilled?
00:25And above all, what is Nishkama Karma keeping in mind all this?
00:31Desireless action or desirelessness or Nishkama Karma are about having the right desire, having
00:40a higher desire.
00:44The argument you are presenting is the traditional cliched argument against Nishkama Karma and
00:56against all spirituality.
01:00So parents tell their kids, all this is only for those who have already achieved a lot.
01:11Buddha and Mahavira could quit because they already had kingdoms.
01:19So you forget all this Gita business.
01:23You first pursue your worldly ambitions and once your ambitions are answered and your
01:32needs are fulfilled, then you can step into whatever mambo-jumbo spirituality there is.
01:42That's the argument that's been going around and you must have picked it up from somewhere.
01:50You see, we do not understand desirelessness.
01:53The framework in which you are looking at the whole issue is this, that there are goodies
01:59out there and somebody like Krishna is coming and forbidding you from going after those goodies.
02:10That's just not you.
02:13I have been with the sessions since nine months now.
02:21So higher understanding, a better grasp was expected.
02:28What is Nishkama Karma?
02:29Nishkama Karma is to see the futility of what you are already pursuing.
02:32It doesn't matter whether you are rich or poor, achiever or non-achiever.
02:39There is nobody who is not pursuing stuff.
02:42Is it so difficult really to earn two square meals a day?
02:49The stuff that you call as need?
02:53Why do people fail to address even their basic physical needs even in this age of surplus?
03:07Is it because they don't have desires?
03:09No, it is because they have very misplaced desires.
03:17There is nobody who doesn't have desire.
03:20Just because a fellow does not own much or has not been succeeding in the worldly race
03:27does not mean that the fellow has any less desire than the so-called achiever.
03:40Right desire is needed and right desire is desire not for one's own petty physical instincts,
03:57not in the direction of the usual social commandments, but towards the higher end that beckons all
04:10of us, the end of absolute freedom, liberation from all bondages, mental, physical, social,
04:24political, ideological.
04:29When you pursue that desire, that's called desirelessness.
04:35Desires does not imply that the fellow who is hungry should not desire for a piece of
04:40bread, but that's the straw manning that is done.
04:50If you want to beat an argument, first of all misconstruct it, misrepresent it, the
05:01straw man thing and then find fault with it.
05:06But the concept that you are finding fault with is not the nishkama karma concept at
05:12all.
05:13You are finding fault with an imaginary concept of your own, otherwise the question could
05:20not have come.
05:24What does desirelessness mean for those who have not achieved anything in this world?
05:30Who has achieved anything in this world?
05:37The ones who have achieved, you might not know them, so you feel that they are valuing
05:47in bliss, but they are equally in misery.
05:54Deep desire is needed, obviously as long as you are that unfulfilled ego, you will
06:03have to desire.
06:06Ego and desire are two faces of the same coin, so you will desire.
06:12The question is desire what?
06:14Desire the right thing.
06:17You could be a very poor fellow, not having enough stuff to even eat and yet you might
06:33be found queuing outside a liquor shop and that's not a very rare happening.
06:45Not that the fellow did not really have the money to eat, but he splurged it, blew it
06:53up on something totally unworthy, he did not know what to desire.
07:02And if you want to check this out, in some hour of the night, just go to one of these
07:17Parkari licensed shops and look at the gentry assembled there, you will not find too many
07:34privileged people there.
07:41Somebody is desiring alcohol when he should be desiring something else and most of these
07:47are poor people.
07:49I am not stereotyping, I am not saying poor people are poor because they go and blow their
07:56money up on alcohol, no that's not what I am saying.
08:06I am saying just because somebody is poor, kindly do not think that the fellow has food
08:11as his first desire.
08:13Food is not so inaccessible.
08:16If food really becomes your primary desire, you will have enough food.
08:23Now you will start talking of vivashta, bondages, helplessness and we have repeatedly spoken
08:42that if you feel helpless or powerless or choiceless in a certain matter, kindly investigate
08:57with more honesty.
09:03It is the wrong kind of self-interest that renders you helpless.
09:11Bondages are always there including the choice to go higher and be better but you are unable
09:17to exercise that choice because some other stupid desire turns out to be dearer to you.
09:38Helplessness is not about not wanting anything.
09:42The one who is preaching nishkama karma is right in the thick of action or is he advising
09:53Arjun to run away.
09:59Nishkama karma is not for absconders.
10:05Nishkama karma means I am a human being.
10:09I have discretion and my desire will follow my discretion.
10:19I am not an animal.
10:21I will not blindly run after instinct.
10:26Not that I won't have desire but my desire will be secondary to my discretion.
10:33That's desirelessness.
10:36Desirelessness is not when you do not have desire.
10:39Desirelessness is when you do not give desire the top position, when you do not put desire
10:46at the hem, when you do not make desire the master, that's called desirelessness.
11:10The last line says what is nishkama karma, keeping in mind all this.
11:14I think I would have spoken for a few thousand hours on this.
11:20Why do you want me to reiterate all that?
11:27What for have all those recordings been made available to you?
11:31Or you will come running to me after every random brainwave?
11:43Does not decency demand that you first do your homework?
11:47Look at the question.
11:48What is nishkama karma?
11:52Having spoken for thousands of hours on this, should I start from scratch again?
12:01And I haven't spoken anything new today.