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Video Information:
Shastra Kaumudi Live, 25.1.20 Advait Bodhsthal, Greater Noida, India
Context:
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन ।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भुर्मा ते संगोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥2.47॥
Your right is for action alone, never for the results. Do not become the agent of the results of action. May you not have any inclination for inaction.
~ Shrimad Bhagwad Geeta, Chapter 2, Verse 47.
~ How to work without expectation?
~ How to apply Shri Krishna's teaching in to life?
~ what is Nishkam Karma Yog?
~ What we should do for change to happen?
~ Does money give you what you want?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information:
Shastra Kaumudi Live, 25.1.20 Advait Bodhsthal, Greater Noida, India
Context:
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन ।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भुर्मा ते संगोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥2.47॥
Your right is for action alone, never for the results. Do not become the agent of the results of action. May you not have any inclination for inaction.
~ Shrimad Bhagwad Geeta, Chapter 2, Verse 47.
~ How to work without expectation?
~ How to apply Shri Krishna's teaching in to life?
~ what is Nishkam Karma Yog?
~ What we should do for change to happen?
~ Does money give you what you want?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00This comes from probably the most popular verse of Srimad Bhagavad Gita.
00:22Karmanyavadhikaaraste Mahafaleshwakadachan Chapter 2, Hymn 47
00:38Your right is for action alone, never for the results.
00:44Do not become the agent of the results of action.
00:49May you not have any inclination for inaction.
01:00The question says, Acharyaji Pranam, I was reflecting on my life in the context of this
01:06verse which says that work should be done without attachment to the fruit.
01:13However, I go to the office and work for money.
01:19I learn music for pleasure, I read the scriptures for freedom, I exercise for health, I practice
01:31yoga asana, pranayama, dhyana for peace and health, I interact with people and family
01:39for pleasure, peace and security, there is nothing that I do which is not for some gain
01:47and if I am convinced that I will not get what I am expecting out of my action, most
01:52probably I won't do it.
01:55How can this be changed in the light of Shri Krishna's wisdom?
02:06All this will not suddenly change in the light of Shri Krishna's wisdom.
02:23For the change to happen, first of all you must have Arjun-like self-doubt and faith
02:46in somebody beyond yourself like Krishna.
02:57You say you go to the office and work for money.
03:07Does money give you what you want?
03:15Unless you come up with at least a doubt regarding the utility of money to your utmost self,
03:38no wisdom is going to be of any help to you.
03:44If you are someone who says I go to the office and work, I get money in return and that completes
03:55the loop, I am okay, I worked, I got enumerated, happy, then no wisdom will work for you because
04:18you are requiring, needing, no wisdom.
04:25You are entering into a deal and the deal appears profitable to you, where is the question
04:43of moving on to something else?
04:50Similarly you say you interact with people and family for pleasure, peace and security.
04:58Do you really get these?
05:02Do you really get peace?
05:04Does your pleasure suffice?
05:08Are you really secure with respect to the people you are mentioning here?
05:18You say you read scriptures for freedom, the freedom that you imagine that you will get
05:26from scriptures, is it really freedom or is it a part of your little self?
05:44The freedom that your little self imagines and envisages, will it suffice to free the
05:57little self of itself?
06:02But here you say as if the cause and effect cycle is serving you beautifully, you say
06:14I do something, I get the results and it is all so nice, if it is all so nice then
06:21why do you need the Gita?
06:23Gita is not for those who are smug and settled in the niceness of their patterns.
06:46The law of Karma, the teaching of Nishkama Karma begins at the point of dissatisfaction,
07:06for that matter all spirituality is only for the dissatisfied ones.
07:13The ones who are cool and cosy and contended, I always tell them to carry on, cool cosy
07:31contended continue, continue.
07:41It is an animal like state in which you do not have any inner turbulence, any deep discontentment
07:59and therefore you have no vision, no desire for a greater self, that is the characteristic
08:09of animals, is it not?
08:11Do animals ever experience any kind of existential angst, do they?
08:23Ever heard of a buffalo contemplating the meaning of life, would be quite a pretty picture
08:33by the way?
08:45B for buffalo and the buffalo is saying to be or not to be, am I really a buffalo?
08:57Because to be is to be a buffalo or some monkey questioning whether the tree really
09:13exists, that doesn't happen, they are all alright.
09:27And there is no need to forcefully disturb someone who is feeling alright.
09:41It is too messy an affair and often worthless.
09:54Is it worth it to intrude into somebody's peace, how so ever superficial or artificial
10:04it is and shake him up when he doesn't want to be shaken up?
10:16The effort may not be worth it.
10:20There might be better candidates to teach, to bring up, to support.
10:43Here the questioner has mentioned just half the story, in which case he is either not
10:54fully honest or does not trust me fully or if this is the complete story as per the questioner
11:07then the story is nice, let the story continue.
11:18I go to the office and work for money, happy shappy.
11:27What kind of juvenile story is this?
11:33Is this what happens in your office, you go to the office, you work and you get money?
11:38Is that the complete story, the total picture?
11:46Anybody who has ever entered a workplace even for one day knows that this is not even a
11:59fraction of the total psychological happening.
12:08There is much more that happens at the workplace.
12:11Why don't you tell us about that?
12:15Yes, it is true that you went to the office expecting money but what did you get?
12:26Yes, it is true that you expected money, expecting that money will give you that.
12:37Did money give you that?
12:40Maybe your expectation that work will give you money was fulfilled.
12:47But why are you hiding from me that there was another expectation?
12:57The expectation was that money will give you that.
13:02Did that expectation materialize?
13:09Did that happen?
13:13Further, you are presenting as if it is some kind of a one to one linear mapping between
13:21work and money.
13:23When you say you go to the office and work and you get money, is it only money that you
13:30get from the office first thing?
13:32Secondly, do you get money necessarily for work?
13:39Answer both the questions.
13:40First, when you go to the office and work, is it only money that you get?
13:44No, there is much more that you get.
13:48Maybe you are not conscious of all that you are obtaining when you are at your workplace
13:54but there is much much more that you are obtaining.
14:00All kinds of nonsense, blemishes, rubbish, stress, comparisons and anxiety.
14:20Equally when you get paid, is it only because you worked?
14:25There are so many who get paid not because they work but because they know a few other
14:37skills.
14:43Is it really a one to one kind of mapping?
14:45Is it?
14:46It is not.
14:49It is a complex situation that you are presenting in a deceptively simplistic way.
15:05Shri Krishna is for those who come to see that their expectations are firstly not being
15:14fulfilled and more scarily, even when their expectations are being fulfilled, it is not
15:24giving them fulfillment.
15:29It is a great discovery to come to.
15:40Fulfillment of expectations does not give you fulfillment.
15:50Expectations might get fulfilled, you do not get fulfilled.
15:58Expectation is kamana, desire.
16:01And when you see that even the complete fulfillment of expectation gives you neither fulfillment
16:13nor completeness, then you say that kamana or expectation is junk.
16:19I do not want to chase it any further, only then.
16:26Therefore, this verse is only for those who have first of all seen the futility of their
16:40self-centric endeavors, those who have seen that first of all we hardly ever get to fulfill
16:53our expectations and more importantly even when the expectations get fulfilled, we do
17:03not get fulfilled.
17:07Then Shri Krishna comes into the picture.
17:16How does he come into the picture?
17:20Once you see that the basic trouble is that the point from where the expectations are
17:31arising, that which you call as the mind or the self or the ego, is in itself a defective
17:42machine to trust so much.
17:53We are expecting fulfillment or perfection from the output of a machine that is in itself
18:08highly imperfect and incomplete.
18:11In fact, the very name of that machine is incompletion.
18:17Now from the product or the output of such a machine, we expect completion.
18:27It is not going to happen.
18:30We set a goal, we achieve that goal, then we want fulfillment from the achievement.
18:40First of all, where did the goal come from?
18:42Who told you that that particular goal is suitable for you?
18:47Who told you who you are?
18:52Who is the one deciding on the self-identity and deciding on setting the goal?
19:04This deciding authority is in itself quite foolish and that is a discovery one has to
19:17make for himself.
19:20In that discovery, really no teacher, no agency can assist you.
19:27You have to come to life's disappointments on your own and better for you that you come
19:39to them as soon as possible, as early in your life as possible.
19:48Once you come to them, then it is possible for you to have a shift of the center itself.
20:03Then you say that the one who is setting the goal is setting the goal for itself.
20:17But the one setting the goal does not know how to set the goal.
20:21Therefore whatsoever goal it will set will not be of any use for itself.
20:28Therefore there is at least one thing now I can do.
20:34I will not set the goal for the sake of the goal setter.
20:43Otherwise, normally, generally, whatsoever goal we set, we set it for our own sake, hoping
20:53that the attainment of the goal will do us some good.
20:59That is the only purpose behind all goals.
21:03If I reach that goal, then I will have some profit, some betterment, some welfare coming
21:10my way.
21:14The one who enters the first steps of wisdom says, the way to get rid of this defective
21:36thing inside me is to first of all not honor the goals that it sets for itself.
21:48The way to get rid of this thing inside me, this thing that troubles me so much, vexes
21:57me endlessly, is to not trust the desires that this thing generates for me by not desiring
22:15too much for myself.
22:18So I go to the office and work for money.
22:23For sure if you will work in the office, you will get a paycheck.
22:26Now what is the paycheck being used for?
22:34The story doesn't end at the receipt of the paycheck or does it?
22:42You receive the paycheck.
22:43Has the story ended?
22:45You deposited it.
22:46Now it is going to be used.
22:49Now the money is going to be spent and consumed.
22:54The one who realizes Nishkama Karma Yoga says, I will not spend the money on my own
23:04desires.
23:05Fine.
23:06The check has come my way, but let the money be spent on something beyond me, to the extent
23:14possible, as much as possible.
23:16In fact, a little more than as much as possible.
23:28The little self wanted the money just for its own gratification and it thought that
23:38gratification equals fulfillment.
23:42Money will come, I will buy a new sofa set this month and what will the sofa set give
23:50me?
23:51Oh, well, the ego does not put it in so many words, but that's what it implicitly expects
23:58or assumes.
24:00The sofa set will deliver me emancipation.
24:05The sofa set will mean some kind of nirvana.
24:10The sofa set will give me so much happiness.
24:16The sofa set, the furniture is worth slogging the whole month for.
24:22Ultimately, what did I do?
24:27I got the paycheck, then there are fixed monthly expenses depending on the cost structure I
24:34have built for myself.
24:36And then there is a particular amount that I put into savings.
24:41And after that, all the remainder went into the sofa set.
24:47What was the expectation?
24:48I am putting all my available cash this month into the sofa set.
24:57Surely it is foolish when I put it so bluntly.
25:06And so very unacceptable, doesn't it?
25:10You say, no, no, no, we are not such idiots that we will expect liberation from the purchase
25:17of a sofa set.
25:19Consciously, maybe you do not have that expectation.
25:24But subconsciously, the sofa set does mean a lot to you, does it not?
25:33Fine.
25:34Let me stretch the sofa set example a little.
25:36Let the sofa set turn into an entire house.
25:42For decades, you carry the plow just to get a house, don't you?
25:59I mean, what else is sadhana?
26:04Every day you went to the office, worked so that you can get some money.
26:12And all the remainder after your usual monthly expenses went into the purchase of the house.
26:24Surely you must be having great expectations from the house, right?
26:32That's how the little self operates.
26:35It does not just want money.
26:38It thinks that money that it earns can deliver something beyond money to it.
26:51Something that is just beyond the scope of all work, all action, all material, the little
27:00self expects to be delivered through money.
27:10To listen to Krishna is to know that money, when spent in the service of the ego, just
27:24inflates the ego and deepens its pre-existing illness.
27:35So money has to be spent in a way that dissolves the ego.
27:43That is the rightful use of money.
27:48So you work, you get money.
27:52Some money is obviously needed for your basic physical sustenance, for your basic securities.
28:01And then the surplus, that surplus has to be spent for a higher cause, not for your
28:12own little gratification, not for the kind of titillation that most people are found
28:20indulging in.
28:28Now the catch there is when you spend money on something tangible and ego knows only tangibles
28:37because the ego itself is a material thing, ego knows only tangibles.
28:48And to work for your liberation is to spend money in an intangible way, towards an intangible
28:58objective.
29:02The ego resists, it says it is foolishness, where is the money going?
29:11It is my hard-earned money, what really am I getting by spending it?
29:20The ego does not realize that even as it is resisting the intangible, it is the intangible
29:29that it deeply craves for, is actually in love with.
29:34Is there any tangible thing that can really satisfy the ego?
29:40Is that your experience?
29:43So the ego, knowing very well that no tangible thing really suffices, still resists when
29:53money goes in the direction of the intangible, that resistance has to be either overcome
29:58or overlooked, are you getting it?
30:06Similarly there are other things that come your way by the dent of your basic existence,
30:12your day-to-day activities.
30:14For example, you say that you learn music for pleasure, now can you learn music for
30:21a higher purpose?
30:25Just as the money you obtain must not go towards the worship of the ego, similarly the knowledge
30:43and skills that you attain in music must not be directed towards the gratification of the
30:51ego and it is quite possible, rather easy to do that, is it not?
31:00Look at most people who, for example, learn to play guitar, what is their objective?
31:08And it's mostly the youngsters who go after guitar, what do they do the moment they have
31:15attained even a basic proficiency?
31:19No, a band comes much later and a band requires some level of skill.
31:32You just carry the guitar, get yourself photographed, learn a few basic tunes, happy birthday to
31:40you, impress girls or impress boys, whatever.
31:50It all looks so romantic, doesn't it?
31:54A guitar by a bonfire, a bonfire by a river, on a chilly night, and some idiot is, purani
32:13jeans or guitar.
32:20That's the use we put music to, don't we?
32:29And the same music can be an instrument of something far bigger, far more significant.
32:43See how the saints used music.
32:48So many of them sang, didn't they?
32:50Were they using music to fatten their own ego?
32:55Were they?
32:56Now that is one way of using music.
33:01And the other way is, see now I am the center of the party.
33:10Everybody is looking at me.
33:14In fact, guitar teachers do not even give the classical knowledge of the chords, etc.
33:25Because that's not what most people anyway want.
33:30Most people come and say, you tell us how to play this particular song, a particular
33:35song that's hot these days, something.
33:43So there is a list of 10 or 20 songs and whatever the musical code for them is there that is
33:50provided, and the fellow learns to do the strings, done.
33:59What are you using your music for?
34:01That's the question.
34:03Are you dedicating it to the service of your little, petty, thirsty ego?
34:09Or can you be a little more conscious, bigger, wider?
34:25Then I interact with people and family for pleasure, peace and security.
34:30You forgot to add that you get neither of the three.
34:38Everybody interacts.
34:41Anybody here who has never interacted with family members or neighbors or within a friend
34:47circle?
34:50Anybody here?
34:52How many of you got these things?
34:57Pleasure, probably you did get, but lower kind of pleasure.
35:03Did you get some higher bliss, classically called Anand?
35:10What kind of security do you get from, to the extent I know, any little bit of security
35:36that is there in your mind, disappears the moment you start gossiping with relatives
35:44etc.
35:45The moment you are told that Varmaji's Rahul is returning from Canada, and very soon he
35:54would be married to some girl coming from a fat, money bag father.
36:11You start wondering about your own girl and boy, where is peace, where is security?
36:21But the same interactions can have a different purpose, a different ambience altogether.
36:34See if it is possible.
36:36It's a tricky affair.
36:41To talk sense with family members is the most difficult thing to do.
36:49You might be a university professor, you might be a Ph.D. in logic, but try talking
36:57logic to your husband or wife, very difficult.
37:07And even if you can talk logic with your husband, how will you ever talk logic with your husband's
37:15mother?
37:21Next to impossible.
37:26But do give it a try.
37:34The central thing is, whatever we do, we do for a purpose.
37:42Let the purpose be a great purpose.
37:46If it can't be a great purpose, let it be at least greater than what it currently is.
37:58Even if you have to interact with someone for just 2 minutes, can the interaction be
38:05higher than what it usually is?
38:10See whether it is possible.
38:17Getting it?