True Karma Yoga (Nishkam Karma) means performing right actions without attachment to results, but this desirelessness is impossible without first understanding the deceptive nature of the ego-self; people deceive themselves by thinking they are selfless while hidden desires for recognition or control remain, and instead of asking 'What should I do?', one must first ask 'Do I really understand myself and the situation?' because action without understanding is like operating on a false diagnosis, and once the actor is purified through self-knowledge, pure action naturally follows without effort, planning, or expectation.
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Stop Asking “What Should I Do?” || Acharya Prashant, On Bhagavad Gita (2025)本站添加:
For those who think of Karma Yoga and Karma Yoga when when Sri Krishna talks of Karma Yoga in the Bhagavad Gita, it simply means Nishkam Karma Yoga.
Karma Yoga does not mean doing anything with total immersion and intensity. No, that is not Karma Yoga. Karma Yoga is getting into it because it is right.
And because it is right, I don't care for the results. That's Karma Yoga.
The first thing, Karma Yoga is always Nishkam Karma Yoga. Second thing, Nishkamta is not possible. Desirelessness is not possible without encountering the falseness of the ego self.
We deceive ourselves doubly. First of all, we think of Karma Yoga as being totally immersed in whatever one is doing.
Right?
I'm a butcher.
And I'm a Karma Yogi because I'm a very dedicated butcher.
There have been instances of thugs and robbers and politicians calling themselves Karma Yogis.
I'm Karma Yogi.
This is what I do and I do it with total disdain for anything else.
This is what I do and I do it openly, brazenly, intensely.
I'm a Yogi No, that's not Karma Yogi.
First thing, Karma Yogi means Karma is Nishkam Karma, not any action.
Not any action.
Action decoupled with concern for result is Nishkam Karma.
And here again, we can deceive ourselves because it is possible, very possible, to convince oneself that one doesn't care for the result.
You know, I'm bringing my kids up.
And after that, I'll leave them free once they are 16 or 18 or 25. I'll leave them to fly free, and I don't want to care or I don't want to impose myself on them. They'll have all the freedom.
And that uh uh emboldens me to call myself a Nishkam Karma Yogi because I'm putting a lot of it into my kids without expecting results.
No, sir. It's just lack of self-knowledge that causes you to declare all this. You do not know how deep expectations are embedded within.
You've convinced yourself that you're doing something selflessly, that's all.
But the reality is very different.
The reality is that there is a definite desire for return.
In fact, there is a definite desire to be called great, also.
And so, you keep declaring to all and sundry that I do things selflessly. I'm such a great person, you see.
The desire is then not simple. It is actually complex and twofold. On one hand, you are cultivating desires like anybody else.
On the other hand, you are so shrewd that you are declaring that there are no desires. And since there are no desires, can you please you know, award me as the selfless father of the century?
No, I'm not asking for the award, but you know, just for the sake of the world in general. I'm not asking for myself. You see, I never eat even for myself.
I eat for the sake of bacteria in my gut.
I'm feeding them. It's donation.
Getting it?
Karma yogis, nishkam karma yog, and you cannot be desireless or selfless if you do not know the self because the self is your default center.
And that is the reason I'm saying chapter two should have been sufficient because chapter two is Sankhya Sankhya those 72 master verses have taken you into yourself.
And nothing more is needed.
Selfless action will follow. You won't even know you are selfless.
In Laozi style, if you know you are selfless, then you are not just selfish, but actually shrewd.
The real selfless one would have no idea that he or she is selfless.
Because selflessness is not an image.
Selflessness is not an idea. How can the really selfless one declare himself as selfless? To call yourself, if I say I'm wearing blue, it is because I already know of something called blue.
And then matching the two, I'll say this is blue.
Selflessness is something totally new.
Nothing to be matched with.
And there is nobody to do the matching.
If I do something, there is always a reason, a desire.
The selfless one really would have no reason and nobody within eager to check whether or not he is selfless.
There has to be somebody. There has to be a self to declare itself as selfless, right?
If you're calling yourself selfless, who is it making the declaration?
The self. The self is saying, "I'm Selfless.
Nice.
Getting it?
You enter Nishkam Karma Yoga. I'll say you perform selfless action.
And then from there, you will have to see that it is impossible to act selflessly without without seeing what a complex thing, what a deceptive thing this self is.
Let's start from there.
It's an outside in approach now. You look at actions and you have you have you have taken a vow.
I'll be selfless. Fine. Then then observe your actions.
You want to act selflessly, observe your actions.
And find yourself failing again and again.
Observe your actions and see that you're not selfless. And when you will fail, then you will realize what a thing this self is.
You start from there, outside in, from the action to the actor.
From the action to the actor.
What's the best way, however? Get to the actor straight away.
Actor seen is actor purified.
And once the actor is purified, what follows is action of the purest kind and the boldest kind.
Without any planning, without any effort, and without any expectation.
You will do it because you cannot now avoid doing it.
You will do it not as an option, but as being.
Not as one of the choices, but as the only option admissible.
And then there, obviously, will be total dedication because you have no other road to go to.
Because you have no other option to choose.
Everything else has been discarded and this is the only thing that remains.
There is no question of distraction or dissipation now.
You'll have to be 100%.
And you won't even know you are 100%.
You just are.
Simple.
A smooth flow.
Unfortunately, we are so obsessed with action that 90-95% of our questions are in a particular format.
This is my situation. Tell me what to do.
This is my situation.
What action should I take?
Right?
Isn't this the way we present our questions to others and to ourselves?
Right? What to do next?
Where to go? What to choose?
What to do seems to be the principal question facing us.
And it is amusing.
Because what to do is always in the context of a situation.
This is the situation. Now, what to do?
Do we even understand the situation?
The very description of the situation is flawed or narrow or shallow.
And based on that description, we want to jump into some action.
It's like entering the operation theater on false diagnosis.
You don't even know what the situation really is like, but you're too eager to act.
I very few people ever asking me, "Can you help me understand this?" We don't want to understand. We want to act.
Why don't you want to understand?
Because action is not really an enemy of the ego. Action is an extension of the ego.
Understanding is enemy of the ego. So, the ego wants to avoid understanding like death.
The ego is only too happy acting.
Do this, go that side.
Start rolling, start jumping.
Run hard.
That doesn't really displease the ego.
What displeases the ego is the mirror.
Look within. Look at yourself.
And then we start shivering.
Therefore, we never say, "Please help me understand." We always ask, "Can you prescribe an action?"
What to do?
It's useless telling you what to do.
Because you first of all do not know who you are and what the situation is.
In your context.
In fact, not understanding the situation itself is the problem.
This situation that you are calling as a problem is a problem exactly because it is not understood.
But you won't still understand. You would say, "No, no, the situation is how I have narrated it."
I know the situation.
The way I describe the situation is how the the really is.
Having said that, now tell me the solution.
Now tell me the solution in terms of action. What do I do now?
What do I do now? What do I do now? This is not a good question to ask, "What do I do now?"
In fact, one of the things I am so frequently blamed for is "He never gives solutions.
Never tells what to do."
I don't want you to illuminate me. I've come to you just in 2 minutes you tell me what should I do.
And I'll thank you for that.
It's your life.
And the doing will happen through your being.
And if the being stands so corrupted, how can pure doing rise from there?
You're rotten from the roots.
And I want to address it there.
But you're saying, "No, let the roots remain they are."
Don't address the roots.
Just spray something on the leaves.
I can't do that.
I don't have any prescribed action for your life.
And if you want to remain the way you are, then you know your life much more intimately than I ever can.
You do what you want to do.
If you are to remain who you are, then you are the best judge. I'm nobody. Who am I?
How do I know what transpires in your office?
How do you How do I know what's it between you and your wife? how will I know that?
Remaining who you are, you are the best judge, so you decide.
My job is to not to let you remain who you are.
But you are saying you will remain who you are and then I should tell the action. No, if you remain who you are, then you decide the action.
Why should it be upon me?
You'll flow like a glacier does in the form of a river.
The glacier you could call it as the source, understanding.
And if that is there, then the river will ensue.
There is no stopping the river now because the glacier is there.
The glacier is expressing itself as the river.
So, the glacier and the river are not two distinct things.
Action is nothing but understanding in movement.
The river is nothing but the glacier in movement.
Therefore, these two are not separate.
Gyan and Karm.
What's the What's the path of knowledge or Adhyatm? That path says, "Know and let it flow."
I know and it flows from there.
Which direction? I don't care.
Consequences?
I again don't care.
All that I care for is consciousness. I will not allow myself to breathe in darkness even for a second. It kills. It is suffocating.
To be alive is to know.
And that is all.
After that, I don't need to have willpower to act.
Willpower is for the stupid.
Willpower is for those who don't understand, but still want to do something with resolution.
Knowledge, Gyan makes things like willpower sound very kiddish.
You don't need willpower. You need understanding.
Same for motivation.
Motive is desire.
You don't need motivation, either.
You need to understand.
And what is faith?
Faith is that if I know, whatever follows will be auspicious.
The action will be auspicious, and the result of the action too will be auspicious.
I will not try to preempt or prepare in advance or predict the result. No, I won't.
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