If everything is temporary, why do anything? || Acharya Prashant, at IIM-Nagpur (2022)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: IIM- Nagpur, Maharashtra   Context: ~ Why is everything temporary in life?  ~ How to keep myself motivated?  ~ How to be detached?  ~ Why does everything change? ~ What should we work for?  ~ What is the importance of compassion?  ~ Can one work without motivation?  ~ What should one desire? ~ How to gain immortality?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00 Acharya Prashant is an alumnus of IIT Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad and a former Civil Services

00:07 Officer.

00:08 He is an exponent of pure Vedantic wisdom, a campaigner against superstition, a proponent

00:13 of spiritual veganism and a founder of essential human freedom.

00:18 Acharya Prashant teaches 17 forms of Gita and 60 forms of Upanishads and also the founder

00:24 of a non-profit organization named Prashant Adwait Foundation.

00:28 He is known as a champion of socio-spiritual awakening in today's world.

00:32 Sir, it's an honor to welcome you to address to our institute.

00:36 On behalf of IIM Nagpur, we thank you for accepting our invitation.

00:41 Now we would like to invite Acharya Prashant and the Director of IIM Nagpur, Dr. Maitri

00:47 to the stage to greet and felicitate our guest of the evening.

00:54 Very good evening.

00:56 We are lucky to have Acharya Prashant ji at IIM Nagpur campus.

01:04 He is a great spiritual leader, author of many books and today all of you know that

01:12 entire world is facing lot of challenges, issues, social issues and need of an hour

01:20 for the entire world is the moral values, spiritual values, civic values and today leaders

01:29 like Acharya Prashant and their spiritual lessons are going to bring the transformation

01:37 change in this world and National Education Policy 2020 is based on the IKS Indian Knowledge

01:45 System which predominantly highlights these four values.

01:51 I am sure Acharya Prashant ji's insights, advice and guidance definitely helps all of

02:00 us to transform ourselves and also change the world.

02:04 Thank you very much, sir.

02:05 Welcome to IIM Nagpur.

02:06 Following our culture, we would like to welcome you through a special living and breathing

02:14 gift that will live for several decades.

02:17 A tree on your behalf has been planted at the Trees for Tiger Sundarbanj National Park,

02:23 West Bengal, India.

02:26 Now moving forward, I would ask Acharya Prashant to please share his experiences and his valuable

02:32 thoughts with us.

02:33 Good evening, sir.

02:34 My name is Tarun Singh from IIM Nagpur.

02:35 Sir, my question is this.

02:36 Actually, we understood this thing that in life, everything is temporary, be it my existence

02:48 on this earth or any relationship or my friendship or any environment around me.

02:55 Everything is temporary.

02:56 So, this thing actually keeps me de-attached but at the same time, this thing actually

03:02 keeps me de-motivated to start something new because I know that ultimately everything

03:08 is temporary and everything will go on.

03:10 So how to start or how to keep myself motivated knowingly that everything is temporary?

03:19 You see, detachment and compassion come together.

03:30 If you say you have detachment, there must be compassion alongside.

03:40 What do I mean by that?

03:43 What is the one source of the entire misery of this world?

03:57 If you want to talk of detachment, you will need to talk of anityata.

04:05 Things are ephemeral but we take them as permanent.

04:13 We try to seek not only permanence but actually timelessness where it is not and that leads

04:26 to the great amount of misery and violence we see all around us.

04:35 So you are detached because you can see that things are ever-changing, everything is in

04:42 flux and it's all a process.

04:44 There are in fact no things either.

04:46 There is only a stream.

04:49 I am coming from the Buddha at this moment.

04:52 You can see all this but does everybody see all this?

04:59 And if everybody does not see all this, where is your compassion?

05:05 You say you have detachment, where is that necessary accompaniment of detachment called

05:16 compassion or is detachment something for just your own benefit?

05:27 Are you detached just for your own sake?

05:31 So you are detached to everything in the world but not to yourself.

05:37 I have detachment and I keep it to myself because I am not detached to myself.

05:44 Like little kids who hide their fruits to themselves.

05:52 Definitely detachment would mean that you would now not raise castles in the air, that

06:00 now you would not do things that are ephemeral and fallible and expect them to give you desired,

06:15 favorable, sweet results in the future.

06:18 Obviously you will not do that.

06:21 But don't you see that everybody around you is doing exactly that?

06:30 You say you are detached but you look around and you find everybody else is simply attached

06:36 and that attachment is the misery of this world.

06:41 Does that give you an idea as to what to do in life?

06:47 And for what purpose, whose sake?

06:52 If you do not want to do anything for your own sake, do it for others.

06:58 That's compassion.

07:00 Do not work for yourself, work for others.

07:03 And when you work for yourself, your energy is limited because the personal self is limited

07:08 and false.

07:10 But when you dedicate yourself to working for the common good, then you find yourself

07:20 blessed with unlimited energy.

07:25 And it's an unending project.

07:29 So you will always have something to do.

07:32 You will never be able to claim retirement.

07:36 Which means you will remain, some part of you will remain quite youthful right till

07:41 your physical end.

07:48 The great man works extremely vigorously but that vigor is not for his own sake.

08:01 That vigor is simply compassion towards everybody.

08:09 In the Bhagavad Gita, when Arjuna is reluctant to fight, of the several things that Shri

08:19 Krishna tells him, one is, "Arjuna, I have nothing to gain from anything.

08:28 But look at me, I keep continuously working.

08:33 Then how can you avoid karma?

08:36 Arjuna, I have nothing to gain from anything and yet I keep continuously working.

08:46 How then are you trying to abstain from action?"

08:55 People work so that their own pockets can be filled, so that they can become famous,

09:05 so that their little small personal self can be made happy.

09:17 If you understand life deeply, then you work not for self-gratification but out of compassion.

09:29 So see what the world needs.

09:33 And the world needs a lot today.

09:37 The world might be false to you, it is not false to everybody else.

09:43 And when the world is not false to people, then people suffer in the world.

09:50 You see this?

09:51 Who is the one who suffers in the world?

09:54 Who thinks of the world as something substantial, something true.

10:00 They suffer.

10:01 So now you have a project waiting for you and the project is to bring light to others,

10:09 the same light that helps you be detached.

10:13 Why should that light not shine on everybody else?

10:22 The power of work without motivation is immense.

10:32 Actually all we know of is the energy that arises from motivation and we think of that

10:39 energy as huge.

10:40 No, that energy is petty, very very limited and small, the energy that arises from motivation.

10:48 What we do not know of, what is so rarely seen is immense action without any motive,

11:01 motiveless action.

11:06 Nothing beats that.

11:11 There is something called a demotivated mind, then there is something called a motivated

11:18 mind and then there is the state of motivelessness.

11:28 Motivationless is the state of highest energy.

11:33 Because you are motiveless, therefore you cannot be frustrated.

11:38 Because you are motiveless, therefore you cannot be defeated.

11:41 To be motiveless is in a sense to be desireless.

11:46 Because you are desireless, therefore you can never be called as failed.

11:56 And because you are motiveless, therefore your work will never be complete.

12:02 Desire can be said to have reached its completion when the object of desire is attained.

12:09 But if there is no object to be desired, then desire is unending.

12:16 And this is a very special kind of desire, a desire for the immense and this desire then

12:23 lends meaning and purpose to life.

12:29 Now you are after something unending and the scriptures say when you are after something

12:36 unending what you get is immortality.

12:43 This is then immortality, to immerse yourself in that which never ends.

12:51 And that can happen only with motiveless action.

12:55 Motivation you must see as something very very petty.

13:01 Am I making myself clear?

13:05 Thank you.

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