The Truth About Selfless Action || Acharya Prashant (2025)

Acharya Prashant

Watch The Truth About Selfless Action || Acharya Prashant (2025) - Acharya Prashant on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00Selfless action is not possible without seeing the hollowness of the self.

00:07You may say you love someone wholeheartedly.

00:10You will still be selfish towards that person.

00:13Not because you are a cheat or a deceiver or an exploiter.

00:16But because it is not possible to be selfless without knowing the self.

00:21People drop Gods.

00:22This one didn't fulfill my desires.

00:25That's the usual center and one doesn't see what's wrong with that.

00:29But the self is such a beautiful thing.

00:32It deceives itself and very successfully so.

00:37Very firmly so.

00:39And as long as one doesn't see what's wrong with that.

00:42Selfless action is obviously impossible.

00:49Please see why do we act and how do we act.

00:52We act from the ego as per the dictates of the ego.

00:56The ego tells us act in this particular way and you will be gratified.

01:02Go to that direction and you will get something.

01:06Strike a relationship here and you will be fulfilled.

01:11Get a new job there.

01:13Enter that market and fetch that coited good and you will have contentment.

01:24All our action is action from the self for the sake of the self.

01:32You could call it self-ish action or action arising out of self interest.

01:43And that's the norm.

01:45Why would anybody be an exception to that norm?

01:48It seems okay, doesn't it?

01:50I feel like buying this, I'll buy.

01:53I feel like reading, I'll read.

01:56I feel like sleeping, I'll sleep.

02:00If I enter that business, I'll make profit.

02:03So I do.

02:07I like that house, I'll stay there.

02:09These are the mannerisms that appeal to me.

02:16I adopt them.

02:18That's the man or the woman.

02:21I find attractive.

02:22So I approach them.

02:27That's the usual center and one doesn't see what's wrong with that.

02:30And as long as one doesn't see what's wrong with that.

02:35Selfless action is obviously impossible.

02:41Selfless action is not possible without seeing the hollowness of the self.

02:50Selfless action is possible only when one sees the self as beingless.

03:05What is selfless action?

03:07Selfless action is to see that all action arising from the usual ego self is stupid.

03:19Because the assumption of the ego self is that action will fetch it peace or completeness.

03:29And that assumption itself is a borrowed one.

03:33And that assumption, that hope has been belied repeatedly in the past.

03:40And yet the self wants to entertain that hope.

03:43If the hollowness of the self is not seen in the first place, selfless action is just not possible.

03:57Selfless action is not a practice, it's not a technique.

04:00Selfless action is a result of having seen the void that is the self.

04:13Otherwise you will keep telling yourself, I want to be selfless.

04:18Nishkam.

04:21I want to operate from a center of universality or something.

04:27There are a lot of neo-spiritual terms.

04:32My life is for others.

04:37Now all this is good social media material, but doesn't mean much.

04:48Not because you are lying or you are being hypocritical.

04:59But because what you are saying is impossible by rule, by law.

05:06You may say you love someone wholeheartedly, you will still be selfish towards that person.

05:16Not because you are a cheat or a deceiver or an exploiter.

05:22But because it is not possible to be selfless without knowing the self.

05:26The self is the default. That's what we are born with and we die with.

05:33You cannot just put away the self.

05:36Because it is nice and more moral to act selflessly and selfishness is chichi.

05:45All that is good copy, good quote, good slogan, but will never fructify.

05:58And you will be torn trying to practice it.

06:02You will say I want to act selflessly, but you will find it's impossible.

06:10Sometimes you will rejoice that you have managed to be selfless.

06:14And then later on, when you are more collected and see more finely,

06:23you will discover that which you called as selflessness was just masked selfishness.

06:31Because the self is the doer, the actor, the operator, the center.

06:41Which self are we talking of? The truth? No, the ego.

06:45We are programmed to operate from there.

06:49You cannot wish it away.

06:50And then there are lies and deceptions and heartbreaks and breakups and all of that.

07:00All my life I was devoted to you and I acted so selflessly.

07:06And yet you don't care for me.

07:09And it becomes very difficult to explain to the other.

07:12No, you cannot act selflessly, not because you are you, but because you are homo sapiens.

07:23Our species, just like the other biological species, is not designed to act selflessly.

07:30Just that we are different because we carry the potential to rise a little above the self.

07:37Other species don't even have that potential.

07:40They will act as per their biological framework.

07:45But the self is such a beautiful thing. It deceives itself.

07:56And very successfully so.

08:00Very finely so.

08:02Aren't we all convinced that a lot of our actions are selfless?

08:07Yes.

08:08And we will find it rather humiliating and disgusting and annoying.

08:18If someone tells us, even in this you are just selfish.

08:21And in this your selfishness is even more vicious because it is masking as selflessness.

08:34We will react.

08:36We might even slap the speaker.

08:39You understand? A safe distance has to be maintained.

08:42You donate to the temple and you say, you know, this is just selfless donation.

08:53Come on.

09:00People drop gods and that's why it is convenient to have so many of them.

09:05You can do god hopping.

09:07God hopping.

09:10This one didn't fulfill my desires.

09:16Forty-two coconuts.

09:20Fifty-six shrines.

09:24And yet he is just smug and egoistic.

09:27You keep sitting atop your skies.

09:29I am not visiting you anymore.

09:31Anymore.

09:36There is a new god or goddess in town.

09:39Some new Babaji is making this one fashionable.

09:48Getting it.

09:53Our kids.

09:56Oh, we are so selfless towards our kids.

09:58Come on.

09:59The very structure of the sentence.

10:05Notice it.

10:07I am selfless towards my kids.

10:10I am selfless towards my kids.

10:13My kids.

10:19Is it possible to be more blind?

10:20And then we expect compliance and returns and obedience.

10:29Basically ROI.

10:31Hmm?

10:33No.

10:35None of that.

10:36So, trying to practice nishkam karma, selfless action, without knowing what self is, is self-deception, not selflessness.

10:51In fact, it is far better, more honest and cleaner if someone says, this is what I am giving to you because that is what I want in return.

11:04Saral kam.

11:05Saral kam.

11:06Saral kam.

11:07The desire is there and the desire is openly expressed for what it is, a desire.

11:17Yes, I am giving you something because I want something else in return.

11:32This is fine.

11:33At least better than desire wield, than expectations masked.

11:47Are you getting it?

11:48So, those who think of karma yoga and karma yoga, when Shri Krishna talks of karma yoga in the Bhagavad Gita, it simply means nishkam karma yoga.

12:07That is not karma yoga.

12:09Karma yoga does not mean doing anything with total immersion and intensity.

12:18No, that is not karma yoga.

12:20Karma yoga is getting into it because it is right.

12:25And because it is right, I don't care for the results.

12:33That's karma yoga.

12:35The first thing, karma yoga is always nishkam karma yoga.

12:41Second thing, nishkamta is not possible, desirelessness is not possible without encountering the falseness of the ego self.

13:05And the moment, Ela says, is certainly not too many, who obeys.

13:11Are you so much others?

13:14In all you have hope that you will take part of your mind.

13:17All right.

13:20Dalamita- Above.

13:21The next day and D-G cricket was just with Mitchell Evans Robert.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended