Death: Destiny, Karma, and Divine Intervention || Acharya Prashant (2024)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

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.

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