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00:00Let's talk about the Karma Yoga first.
00:02What I've understood is action takes precedence over everything else.
00:05But is that the right interpretation?
00:07What is Karma Yoga then?
00:09Focus not on the Karma but on the Kartha, the doer.
00:13Know who you are.
00:15If you focus too much on the action, you will be deluded.
00:18And that desire is not something that can be fulfilled by just achieving the next target.
00:25Nishkam Karma is not about not having desire.
00:27It's not about the action.
00:28It is about the actor.
00:30It is not about the desire.
00:31It is about the desirous entity.
00:33So all wisdom literature is about enabling you to see.
00:38See what?
00:39First of all, who you are.
00:40Is there an internal motivation?
00:42Isn't everything external motivation?
00:44Nishkam Karma is motiveless action.
00:46What do I do?
00:48You are trying to motivate.
00:49Sri Krishna is saying motivation is nonsense.
00:53Knowledge leads to action.
00:54The Jnana Yoga leads to Karma Yoga.
00:57It's not that if you have the right knowledge, then you will do the right action.
01:00No, no.
01:00No, that's not the framework.
01:01Once you know who you are, you need not keep an eye on yourself.
01:05Now, this kind of freedom, as you hear it, as you hear of it, does it not terrify you?
01:10It's scary.
01:11It's scary.
01:12That quantum of freedom, that immensity of freedom, where even you do not know what you are going to do next.
01:18And that's the reason why the real thing could never become Masi.
01:22That's why India, in spite of being the mother of these things, Indians could never partake the benefit.
01:32I want to talk about the three main yogas in the Bhagavad Gita.
01:36So let's talk about the Karma Yoga first, which is, put it in a nutshell, what I've understood is action takes precedence over everything else.
01:47See, as we were saying, Gita comes from the legacy of the Upanishads.
02:01In fact, you know, very strictly speaking, the Upanishads are placed higher than the Gita.
02:13The Upanishads form part of what is called the Shruti literature.
02:17Revealed literature, literature without an author, literature without a human author, a Porusheya literature.
02:28So Upanishads come from there.
02:31Gita forms part of Smriti literature, where the scripture is the product of an author, a human author.
02:41It's a human creation.
02:42So the Gita forms part of Mahabharata, and Mahabharata is attributed to Vedvayas.
02:47So very, very strictly speaking, because Upanishads are Shruti and Gita is Smriti, the Upanishads are in some sense above the Bhagavad Gita.
02:58So that is not practically how it is accepted, and it is also not useful to put it this way.
03:06But it's important to see that it's the message of the Upanishads that will reverberate through all the chapters of the Gita.
03:19It has to.
03:19So the Upanishads are Gyaan, what is Gyaan?
03:27Gyaan not in the sense of knowing about the world and this and that.
03:32Atma Gyaan, self-knowledge.
03:36So the core message of Gita 2 is self-knowledge.
03:42Arjun, please understand who you are.
03:45So what is Karma Yog then?
03:48Focus not on the Karma, but on the Karta, the doer.
03:55Know who you are.
03:57If you focus too much on the action, you will be deluded.
04:04Look at the actor.
04:05If the actor is right, you need not think about the action.
04:09The action will fall in place on its own.
04:13That's Karma Yog.
04:14I like to put it this way.
04:17Chapter 2 comes before Chapter 3.
04:19Chapter 3 is Karma Yog.
04:24Chapter 2 is Gyaan Yog.
04:25Got it.
04:29So, the best thing was served to Arjun, first of all.
04:34Gyaan Yog.
04:35That's the Gyaan Yog.
04:37But Arjun was still reticent.
04:39You know, Krishna, I have my doubts.
04:41In fact, at points, he is kind of accusing Krishna of misleading him.
04:47That's the extent.
04:48You know, attachment and delusion can delude you.
04:54So, after Gyaan Yog, which is Sankh Yog, then there is Karma,
04:58Karma Sannyas, and all the things that follow.
05:03So, Karma.
05:05Whenever Shri Krishna says Karma, it's Nishkaam Karma.
05:10Whenever Shri Krishna says Gyaan, it's Atma Gyaan.
05:12So, Karma Yog is actually Nishkaam Karma Yog.
05:18Nishkaam Karma means action that is not coming from a desirous self.
05:26Action that is not coming from a desirous actor.
05:31And if you do not know the actor, the actor will remain desirous because we are born incomplete.
05:38Where there is incompletion, there is desire.
05:40Desire to be complete.
05:42If I do not know myself, I will remain incomplete and therefore all my actions will be full of desire.
05:48Therefore, the only way Karma can be Nishkaam is through Atma Gyaan.
05:53You cannot have Nishkaam Karma without Atma Gyaan.
05:57Otherwise, your Nishkaam Karma will be very superficial.
06:00On the surface, you might feel you are acting without desire.
06:03But there will be some lingering desire within that you might even not know of because you don't know yourself.
06:11And that desire is not something that can be fulfilled by just achieving the next target.
06:18No, no, it never gets fulfilled.
06:19It never gets fulfilled.
06:20It never gets fulfilled.
06:21It can get fulfillment only through getting negated.
06:29So, today, in my heart, there are desires.
06:33Yes.
06:33There are things that I want to achieve in medicine, in social media, or whatever.
06:38Now, I cannot say that I will let go of these desires after I have achieved, say, one million on YouTube.
06:48There is nothing like that.
06:49No, no, no.
06:50Nishkaam Karma is not about not having desires.
06:52Nishkaam Karma, I repeat, is about not having desires coming from a point of incompletion.
07:01It's about the actor, not about the action.
07:05It's about the desirous one, not about the desire.
07:07You can have desires.
07:09I can have desires.
07:09You can have desires, but your core must be desireless.
07:14Then your desire will not be for your personal self.
07:19Then your desire will actually be auspicious for the entire world.
07:24Nishkaam Karma is not about not having desire.
07:28Sri Krishna does not use prescriptive language.
07:31No, do not desire.
07:32Just go and fight.
07:34No, not that way.
07:35So, we said it's not about the action.
07:39It is about the actor.
07:41It is not about the desire.
07:43It is about the desirous entity.
07:47So, it is about the desirous entity.
07:48Nishkaam Karma means the one who used to have desires has now known himself.
07:55And after you have known yourself, all the evil within is dropped, disappears, vaporizes.
08:03The only evil within is lack of self-knowledge.
08:09Once I know myself, I am clear about who I am.
08:12It is not as mundane as I am making it sound to be.
08:17But once you have known yourself, there is nothing called one knowing yourself.
08:23There is no end to it.
08:24But for the purpose of this conversation, I am putting it in simplistic terms.
08:27So, once there is that, what could I call it, purity within, clarity, or clarity within,
08:36then in some sense, you are entitled to desire.
08:41You are not even entitled to desire.
08:42You are obligated to desire.
08:44You are not even obligated to desire.
08:45You are free of all obligations.
08:46For instance, if my identity is an F1 car driver and through and through my identity is that,
09:01I will desire to win the race because that is my identity.
09:06But you are saying that I can do that as long as my core self is detached
09:17the entire wisdom literature is absolutely silent of what you can do, what you cannot do.
09:25It is totally silent on that.
09:28It is not prescriptive.
09:30It is not an instruction manual.
09:32I feel we are at the crux of something here because if you crack this, huh?
09:36Yes.
09:36So, it is not about whether you can want that, whether you can achieve that,
09:40whether you should do this, whether you should do that.
09:43Is that allowed in your religion?
09:45No, no, no. We don't do these things.
09:46We are Jews.
09:47We are Christians.
09:47We are Buddhists or Hindus.
09:49No, no.
09:50That's not the way of wisdom.
09:53What you do, what you wear, what you eat, how you marry, whether you marry,
09:59we are not going to get into that.
10:01That's not the way of wisdom.
10:03We want to look at who we are.
10:07We want to look at who we are.
10:08And after that, whatever happens is auspicious.
10:12Fine.
10:13Who am I to tell you how to live?
10:15But yes, if you are struggling, I would probably come to you and throw some light on the way.
10:22You know, you are struggling, you are stumbling, you are falling, you have hurt your knees.
10:26I would say, friend, here is a torch.
10:31There is some light.
10:32But you have to use your own eyes.
10:34And whether you want to use the torch is again your discretion.
10:38I am not going to impose it on you.
10:40You have to do it yourself.
10:41So, all wisdom literature is about enabling you to see.
10:49See what?
10:49First of all, who you are.
10:51You are.
10:52And what does that mean?
10:54Because if you repeat that phrase too often, it becomes very cliched.
10:58And who I am, who I am appears so mysterious, one gets lost in it.
11:03It's not about seeing who I am.
11:04It's about seeing who I am not and yet have become.
11:09I'm not this and yet I have become this.
11:11Many times you find yourself in situations where you almost feel like you are acting.
11:17You are acting.
11:18Because you have been trained to act.
11:20Yes.
11:21You have been conditioned to act.
11:22You know.
11:23You have to do it in a situation.
11:24You have to do it in a situation.
11:29Now that the fellow has arrived, you are supposed to smile and greet.
11:34Now the fellow says, oh, I lost my job.
11:36You are supposed to offer some kind of commiseration.
11:39Correct.
11:40You know.
11:41So, I'm not that.
11:43But something happened in the process of my journey through life.
11:47And I just got indoctrinated, conditioned to do that.
11:53So, Gyan is about freedom from what you are not and yet have been forced to become.
12:00It is freedom from becoming.
12:03Becoming that came to you in the past and becoming that pulls you to the future.
12:08What does future mean to us?
12:09Becoming, right?
12:10I want to become such a thing in the future.
12:12And all this becoming associated with the future is actually a residue of the past.
12:16You cannot have desires for the future, devoid of your experiences of the past.
12:23If you remove everything that has happened to you in the past,
12:27one minute ago, what will you do?
12:29There is no desire for the future then.
12:31You cannot have dreams and aspirations then.
12:33So, we remain entangled in all that and the net result is suffering.
12:36So, wisdom then, with the way Krishna is imparting it to Arjuna, is about seeing what Arjuna is not.
12:45Arjuna, why are you behaving this way?
12:48You know where your action is coming from.
12:49Arjuna, can you see where your action is coming from?
12:53Therefore, there is a tremendous lot of negativa the Gita deals in.
12:58Nirashi, Nirmamo Bhav, Yuddha, Vigata Jaur.
13:03So, you look at the construction of the very word.
13:08Drop hope, Nirashi Bhav.
13:12Drop ownership, the sense of possession, Nirmamo Bhav.
13:17You see how the very word is constructed?
13:21Hope is towards the future, ownership is from the past.
13:24Drop these things, drop these things.
13:26In fact, the entire repository of words that you find in the Gita,
13:31they themselves tell you what Sri Krishna is attempting.
13:35He is saying, just drop it. Just drop it. Just drop it.
13:38And if you do not drop that, then you will drop the Gandiv.
13:41So, pick up the Gandiv and drop the nonsense.
13:44Right. Because when you think about motivation, why are we doing anything?
13:50We are most likely being either pushed by something in our past or pulled by something in our future.
13:55I am doing this hoping that something will come in the future.
13:59Or I am doing this because I have committed to something that I have told myself.
14:03Actually, there is not even an or in between.
14:05You know, as you stand, as you stand, as you stand, there is the past that you think is behind you.
14:11Huh? And the future is but a mirror.
14:15What you look at as the future is nothing but a reflection of your past.
14:24Here I am and there is a mirror there.
14:25And what I see in the mirror is stuff that is actually behind me.
14:33So, there are no new dreams actually.
14:36Right.
14:37What we are dreaming of is actually just the stuff of the past repackaged.
14:41Or things that you can see other people do.
14:43Things that you have seen other people do.
14:46Yes.
14:46Again from the past.
14:47Again in the past.
14:48Correct.
14:51Yes.
14:51Because what can you dream of in the future that has not happened?
14:54Can you think of anything that has not been in our experience so far?
14:58No.
14:59Even imagination is dependent on the repository of experiences.
15:04So, all hope and optimism is just projected past.
15:08Projected past.
15:09And that's what the Gita is attempting to read Arjun of.
15:15In psychology and even in neuroscience, when it comes to motivation,
15:19there are these terms called external motivation and internal motivation.
15:22Yes, yes.
15:22So, all external motivation is motivation influenced by things that have happened around us to us.
15:29And internal motivation is one that comes from within.
15:32And there is a lot of discussion whether, is there an internal motivation?
15:36Isn't everything external motivation?
15:41In the world of Gita, first of all, the external and the internal motivations become one.
15:48Secondly, both become redundant.
15:52Krishna is not motivating Arjun. Krishna is illuminating Arjun.
15:58In fact, the very core of Gita is motive-less action.
16:03I'll put all motivational speakers out of business.
16:06Oh, they hate me.
16:10What do I do?
16:10Nishkam karma is motive-less action.
16:13What do I do?
16:13You are trying to motivate.
16:19Shri Krishna is saying motivation is nonsense.
16:28Knowledge leads to action.
16:31The Jnana Yoga leads to Karma Yoga.
16:35After that is
16:37The Jnana Yoga leads to action.
16:46Knowledge makes action superfluous.
16:54In knowledge, you cease to bother about action.
16:59It's not that if you have the right knowledge, then you will do the right action.
17:03No, that's not the framework.
17:06Once you know who you are, you need not keep an eye on yourself.
17:12Because action still assumes will.
17:15Now, there is no will.
17:16There is just a certain very peaceful completion.
17:22And after that, you can allow yourself to just play and flow.
17:26That's Sadawath Vedanta. Go play.
17:29So, if you gain the knowledge that you are water,
17:32you will flow.
17:33If you gain the knowledge that you are a rock, then you will be there.
17:36And if you understand you are nobody,
17:39then there is no need to have prescriptive checks on yourself.
17:47Why else would you want to determine your action in advance?
17:50Why would you want to plan your action in advance?
17:53Only when, first of all, you have a model of things.
17:56To be free of ignorance is to be free of all models.
18:00Now, you can act freely.
18:02Now, you can act in ways that even you have not thought of.
18:07Now, this kind of freedom, as you hear it, as you hear of it,
18:11does it not terrify you?
18:17It's scary.
18:18It's scary.
18:19That quantum of freedom, that immensity of freedom,
18:22where even you do not know what you are going to do next.
18:24Yes, it's horrible.
18:27And that's the reason why the real thing could never become Masi.
18:32That's why India, in spite of being the mother of these things, Indians could never partake the benefit.
18:40At least not the bulk of Indians.
18:41Because even when we talk of this freedom, we are talking of freedom from self.
18:47Because what we identify as self is that person who is acting.
18:53We still associate freedom with freedom of choice.
18:56Freedom of choice.
18:56And here you are saying that once you have that level of knowledge, there is no need for choice.
19:01There is no choice.
19:02Because there is no chooser.
19:03There is no chooser.
19:04There is nobody to choose.
19:06Correct.
19:06So, in a way, that is death.
19:09That is death.
19:10Wonderfully put.
19:12And that death is something that wisdom literature sings so beautifully and so
19:22just tugs at your heartstrings.
19:24If you hear the saints singing of death, that inner death.
19:28Jis Marini says,
19:29Jagdare meroman anand.
19:30Kab marihon kab bhaetehon puran parmanand.
19:33He is saying, you know, the world is afraid of death.
19:36And that's what gives me joy.
19:37I want to die.
19:39And of course, he is not talking of physical death.
19:41He is talking of the inner death.
19:43The mahamrityu.
19:45That must come to you before the body falls apart.
19:48Ego death.
19:49Ego death.
19:50And that's the purpose of life.
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