Video Information:
Myth Demolition tour, 20.02.2020, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India
Context:
~ What is meaning of Sakam Karm and Nishkam karm?
~ What is meaning of Vikarm?
~ What is best way to perform Karma?
~What is the concept of Karma Akarma vikarma?
~What is the difference between karma and akarma in nishkam?
~What is meant by Nishkam Karm?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Myth Demolition tour, 20.02.2020, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India
Context:
~ What is meaning of Sakam Karm and Nishkam karm?
~ What is meaning of Vikarm?
~ What is best way to perform Karma?
~What is the concept of Karma Akarma vikarma?
~What is the difference between karma and akarma in nishkam?
~What is meant by Nishkam Karm?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Category
ЁЯУЪ
LearningTranscript
00:00My humble Pranam. What is the exact meaning of Gahana Karmogati? There are a lot of sayings
00:14about that. You'll have to quote the entire shloka, then you'll understand. Actually,
00:22these three words, Gahana Karmogati have been quoted so variously and so frequently, even
00:32by government of India, that they have lost all perspective. Therefore, you will have
00:40to go back to chapter three and four and look at the entire verse. And then you will know
00:47that the way these three words are used frequently is not the way the shloka intends them to
00:58mean. And in the same chapter, Lord Krishna has said about Karma, Akarma and Vikarma.
01:08In fact, Gahana Karmogati is related to this. This only. Karma, Akarma and Vikarma. Karma
01:21is when you make a choice in acting. Akarma is when there is no choice available. No choice
01:34might be available for two reasons. One, the action might be totally involuntary,
01:39prakritic. Or because you are so inattentive that stuff is happening without your consent
01:51or notice. That is Akarma. So, there is no doership involved there. There is no real choice
02:01involved there. Complete conditioning is at play. That is Akarma. So, the fundamental distinction
02:10is first of all between Karma and Akarma. Karma is when there is an agency making a choice. Akarma
02:18is when there is no agency at all making a choice. Right now you are nodding your head. Most
02:23probably it is Akarma. Because you are not making a conscious choice to nod your head.
02:30Similarly, the beating of the heart. That is pure Akarma. That is pure Akarma. But the nodding of
02:37the head need not be Akarma, is yet Akarma because it is happening just on its own,
02:47in a most conditioned way. Getting it? So, that is the distinction between Akarma and Karma.
02:53Now you come to Karma. Karma has been broadly divided into three categories. Sakam Karma,
03:09Nishkam Karma and then there is a very special category called Vikarm. Nishkam Karma is when
03:23you work directly for the sake of liberation. I am working directly to attain liberation. I
03:38do not like my bondages and I am in a hurry. I love freedom so much that I cannot wait for it.
03:43So, I am not working to keep my chains intact. I am not postponing my liberation for another day.
03:58That is Nishkam Karma. I am not working to feed my Kamana, my personal desires. I am working
04:09with only one objective, freedom from Kamana. That is Nishkam Karma. Then there is Sakam Karma. Even
04:19in Sakam Karma, there is a latent desire towards liberation. But because it is latent, therefore,
04:27it is indirect. Most people will say, yes, I want liberation, but through something else. So,
04:36I want liberation through a house. I want liberation through money. I want liberation
04:42through knowledge or through a man or a woman or through something. That is Sakam Karma. I am
04:48chasing liberation via my desire. I am using my desire to come to liberation. But what is common
04:58between Nishkam Karma and Sakam Karma is that you at least know that you are in bondage and
05:04want liberation. Nishkam Karma is the honest and straightforward route. Sakam Karma is the ordinary,
05:10dishonest and convoluted route. Then there is Vikarm. In Vikarm, you say, I am already
05:21liberated and I don't need any liberation. In Vikarm, the one who is in bondages is so deeply
05:30dishonest that he starts proclaiming his liberation. And he says, I am already liberated. Who needs
05:38liberation? I am happy. And I will work to get more happiness. So, this entire cult of happiness,
05:48which is all-pervasive, especially in the West, is the cult of Vikarm. The cult of deep dishonesty,
05:59deep inner dishonesty. You decorate your bondages and start calling them your ornaments.
06:07Now there is no possibility of liberation. Because now bondage itself has been named as
06:23liberation. You are deeply in an inner stress and yet you call yourself as blissful. The result of
06:37this can only be mental disease. What else is this pandemic mental disease? Vikarm. So, Krishna
06:55says, Nishkam Karma Yogi comes directly to me. Sakam Karma Yogi through my blessing attains the
07:06one he is worshipping. So, if you want this or that or that, then you will attain that. Even if
07:17to be just disappointed, but you will attain that. And having attained that, you will realize that
07:23that thing is not what I really wanted. So, you will go to the next thing and next thing. And
07:28there is some probability that after a series of disappointments, you will realize that you need to
07:36look somewhere else. So, some chance of liberation is there even for the Sakam Karmi. But for the one
07:47who is now mired in Vikarm, there is no chance. His fate is suffering. Enforced punishment.
08:05Where is this Vikarm? Is it from the Bhagavad Gita? If I wanted to read more.
08:18But it's not explained in Bhagavad Gita. Shri Krishna just leaves us in suspense saying that
08:29you must know the difference between Karma, Akarma and Vikarma. By himself, he doesn't quite explain.
08:38So, you have to go through the entire length of the Bhagavad Gita to deduce what he means.
08:45He remained a trickster all his life. He was quite a naughty fellow.
09:05Is there a version of the Bhagavad Gita you recommend reading? Or a translation?
09:13That's better than others. In general, the translations provided by the Ramakrishna Mission are quite authentic.
09:27If I get a huge achievement in a society or in a materialistic life and at the same moment,
09:39I want to be egoless or be in a mode that I am not a doer. But every time it does not happen,
09:53it will be like two or three days to believe that I am not a doer. If I achieve some award on the
10:00stage or anything of a reward, at exactly that moment, I want to be in that mode that I am not a doer.
10:09So, what will be the exercise or what should we have to prepare our mind for that?
10:16Then you have to know what is it that you are being felicitated for.
10:26If someone starts feeling inflated on being publicly felicitated, it merely means that he
10:37does not quite know what all that ceremony is really about. The one who has really
10:50earned his laurels knows fully well what goes into an event.
10:59If you look at even a small happening, you know very well how much of chance is involved in it.
11:09Even the thoughts in what you call as your own mind are not really your own. We are not the doers
11:20of even our thoughts. How then we can really be the doers of this and that?
11:35So, if somebody starts internally taking credit
11:40for some happening, it merely means he does not know the happening.
11:45Let the public remain in illusion if they are honouring you on a stage or something.
11:56Let them remain happily deluded. Let them think that you have done something
12:01magnificent. But within yourself, you should know that all this is just Prakriti.
12:08Prakriti plays games. Ego takes credit.
12:21Stuff happens and I pounces on it and says I did it.
12:30The thing is it happened. It is a great exercise in humility to see that that which we call as
12:44most intimate to our being, even that is incidental. Birth, death, love affairs, marriage,
12:58kids, your very DNA, thoughts, passions, emotions, your gender.
13:12Did you really intend to be born a male?
13:19And having born a male, after a while you start taking credit
13:23for your muscular body or your special height.
13:29It is just ignorance about the Prakritic processes of the universe.
13:39What is Prakritic? Does it just mean random?
13:43Physical nature. All this that you see all around yourself.
13:47Stuff, material existence that is conditioned to go on and on in its own way.
13:58Material existence that does not really include or need consciousness.
14:07An electron circling around the nucleus, that is Prakriti. Planets orbiting around the sun,
14:16that is Prakriti. A seed falling into the soil and a plant sprouting off from it, that is Prakriti.
14:31None of that really requires a choosing consciousness. It just happens.
14:40You may want it, you may not want it. You may exist, you may not exist. That just happens.
14:46Food getting digested in your intestines, that is Prakriti. You don't do it, it happens.
14:56No element of conscious choice is involved in this.