What is a woman's duty, and who defined it? || Acharya Prashant (2026)

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]I'm a woman. I'm supposed to perform my duties. And who will tell me my duties?

[00:00:04]The girl gathers it from the environment itself. These are my duties.

[00:00:08]These are my duties as a girl, and these will be my duties as a wife, and then as a mother, and then just keep performing your duty. Have no attachment.

[00:00:16]Basically, become a dead machine that keeps working, working, working, keeps performing her duties. And if somebody comes and asks you, "What are you getting out of this life?"

[00:00:25]Question to ask. What [music] am I getting out of it? And it's a scary question. Because the moment you ask this question, it demands action. Go and ask this question to your mothers and see how firstly annoyed and then terrified they get.

[00:00:39]You have lived this way for so long.

[00:00:41]What exactly have you been getting out of? But that's what they have been trained never to Let me read the verse aloud for you, and then you will see how from a cunning center, the verse can be read in a totally different way.

[00:01:07]Parth, being unattached, keep continuously acting rightly.

[00:01:13]Mhm. Uh the the English translation says uh rightly. Uh the word there is samachar.

[00:01:21]Some acharan.

[00:01:23]The right action.

[00:01:26]Now, the verse by itself does not define what right action is.

[00:01:32]Now, that definition is coming from some other scripture. Let's say Manusmriti.

[00:01:40]All that the Gita is saying, please keep acting rightly.

[00:01:46]Please keep acting rightly and continuously without worrying about the result.

[00:01:55]Keep performing your duty continuously without seeing what that beautiful life is giving you.

[00:02:05]Because such a person is established in the supreme.

[00:02:16]So that's the psychological reward that you get because I'm sacrificing my life to fulfill my caste identity.

[00:02:31]God will be pleased with me.

[00:02:34]Because that's what the Gita says.

[00:02:38]What am I supposed to do?

[00:02:41]I'm a woman.

[00:02:42]I'm a woman. I'm supposed to perform my duties. And who will tell me my duties?

[00:02:48]Many Smriti books are there and the popular culture is there that will tell me what my duties are. In fact, nobody needs to tell me my duties. It's in the air.

[00:03:01]The girl gathers it from the environment itself. These are my duties.

[00:03:05]These are my duties as a girl and these will be my duties as a wife and then as a mother and then right?

[00:03:14]And if you keep performing your duties without paying attention to what you are getting from it, God will be pleased with you.

[00:03:25]Just keep performing your duty.

[00:03:28]Have no attachment.

[00:03:30]Basically, become a dead machine.

[00:03:34]Basically, become a dead machine that keeps working, working, working, keeps performing her duties.

[00:03:40]And if somebody comes and asks you what are you getting out of this life?

[00:03:44]Say I'm pleasing God.

[00:03:49]I'm pleasing God and the next birth maybe I'll become a man and be born in riches and I'll do the same things to other women what the men have done to me.

[00:04:07]Do you get this?

[00:04:10]No, it's not about not caring for results. You must care for results.

[00:04:20]Only the result can demonstrate to you whether your inner equation is balanced.

[00:04:33]Only the result is the variable. All else is anyway controlled by the ego.

[00:04:47]When the target is fulfillment, when the aim is fulfillment, why must you not verify, cross-check, whether your actions are leading to fulfillment? You must What else are you acting for?

[00:05:14]What else?

[00:05:16]Fulfillment.

[00:05:18]And if your life is not giving you that, what's the purpose of living?

[00:05:26]What's the purpose of living like that?

[00:05:32]Not that you have to go and die somewhere.

[00:05:35]You have to stop living like that.

[00:05:42]It's a very important question to ask.

[00:05:45]What am I getting out of it?

[00:05:48]And this is a scary question because the moment you ask this question, it demands action.

[00:05:56]Go and ask this question to your mothers.

[00:06:00]And see how firstly annoyed and then terrified they get.

[00:06:08]What are you getting out of it?

[00:06:12]You have lived this way for so long.

[00:06:14]What exactly have you been getting out of it?

[00:06:20]But that's what they have been trained never to consider.

[00:06:30]Because if you consider that you are selfish, this selfish woman all the time keeps calculating what she's getting out of performing her household duties.

[00:06:42]No, you are not to get anything out of it. You You must do this to please God.

[00:06:49]And that's the function God many a times performs in Lok Dharma.

[00:07:03]Like a dead weight on the head of the oppressed.

[00:07:10]They are already oppressed. Place this dead weight called God so that they are forbidden from ever rising even in the future.

[00:07:24]To a lot of people this question will appear very novel, very alien, even absurd. I mean, are we even supposed to ask this? What am I getting out of this?

[00:07:38]We are just to We are just to live like this, right?

[00:07:41]What kind of stupid question is this?

[00:07:42]What am I getting out of this?

[00:07:44]I'm just doing my duty.

[00:07:46]I'm just doing my duty. But who told you this is your duty? No, but but you see who am I to ask this question?

[00:07:55]I'm just a pretty little woman.

[00:07:58]Who am I to ask this question?

[00:08:08]You understand this? Yes, you have to you have to continuously ask what am I getting out of this?

[00:08:17]This is the question that challenges this false center itself.

[00:08:28]Only after the false center is gone do you get the privilege to not to care about the results.

[00:08:41]Not caring about the results is something not advisable to your current state to the common man.

[00:08:54]Instead, the common man should be continuously attentive towards the results because the results are the only thing that can shock you.

[00:09:08]They are the only variable that can come as a surprise.

[00:09:16]All else is manipulated by you.

[00:09:21]So you can happily fool yourself.

[00:09:24]The result is the only thing you cannot manipulate.

[00:09:29]Therefore, pay attention. You say, you know, I did this, I did this, I did this, this, this, this. Okay, what came out of it?

[00:09:36]No, we are not talking of the material consequences. We are talking of the the central thing you started out to achieve. What is that central thing?

[00:09:47]Fulfillment. You did all this.

[00:09:50]You did all this. The purpose was not attainment of an object. So, don't quote that to me.

[00:09:56]Don't say, "Oh, I acted and I got that."

[00:09:58]But, you were never after an object.

[00:10:02]You were after fulfillment through an object.

[00:10:07]Right?

[00:10:09]You were after fulfillment through an object.

[00:10:13]I ask you you you are to go to Bombay and I ask you, "Have you reached Bombay?"

[00:10:17]And you show me a train ticket.

[00:10:20]I mean, the train ticket is not Bombay.

[00:10:21]The train ticket is supposed to be the the means.

[00:10:26]But, instead of being at Bombay, all you have is a train ticket to demonstrate.

[00:10:30]That's stupid.

[00:10:31]Right? So, don't tell me how many objects you have attained. Please tell me whether you could really come good on your primary purpose. What was the primary purpose?

[00:10:51]That's a brutal question.

[00:10:54]That's a sharp cut to the ego.

[00:10:59]Sometimes I have succeeded in achieving objects. Sometimes I have failed. But, irrespective of whether I succeed or fail, I remain unfulfilled.

[00:11:15]Now, can you still support your model?

[00:11:20]No.

[00:11:21]But, and once the model is gone, what has actually gone?

[00:11:28]The center the model came from.

[00:11:34]the very source, the beginning point of the model. What is that?

[00:11:38]There you go.

[00:11:41]If the results are acknowledged, honestly acknowledged, the model collapses. If the model collapses, its center cannot stand.

[00:11:52]And if you want its center to continue, then it is very necessary that you keep ignoring the results. And that's what Lokadharma teaches you.

[00:12:05]Please be selfless. Don't ever ask, "What is in it for me?"

[00:12:11]And if you ask that question, then you are considered too clever for yourself, too smart, cunning, all the pejoratives.

[00:12:34]Is this fulfilling me?

[00:12:36]This is not a selfish question.

[00:12:41]It's your basic accountability towards yourself.

[00:12:45]You can call it your existential responsibility.

[00:12:48]Is this fulfilling me?

[00:13:16]They don't want you to ask that question. And you too don't want to ask that question. Why?

[00:13:22]Because the answer is known to them and to you. You know what the answer would be.

[00:13:31]Therefore, it's safer to not even raise the question.

[00:13:40]Don't raise the question and continue in your pre-existing ways.

[00:13:50]And act holy.

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