Questioner: What is it to go desireless for those who have not achieved anything in this world? What will be our relationship with this world then? Is desirelessness only for those whose all needs are already fulfilled? And above all, what is Nishkam karma keeping in mind all this?
Acharya Prashant: Desireless action or desirelessness or Nishkam karma are about having the right desire, having a higher desire.
The argument you are presenting is the traditional, cliched argument against Nishkam karma and against all spirituality. So, parents tell their kids, “All this is only for those who have already achieved a lot.” Buddha and Mahavir would quit because they already had kingdoms. So, you forget all this Gita business. You first pursue your worldly ambitions, and once your ambitions are answered, and your needs are fulfilled, then you can step into whatever mumbo-jumbo spirituality there is. That’s the argument that’s been going around, and you must have picked it up from somewhere.
You see, we do not understand 'desirelessness'. The framework in which you are looking at the whole issue is this — that there are goodies out there, and somebody like Shri Krishna is coming and forbidding you from going after those goodies.
That’s just not you have been with the sessions since, nine months now. A higher understanding, a better grasp, was expected. What is Nishkam karma? Nishkam karma is to see the futility of what you’re already pursuing. It doesn’t matter whether you are rich or poor, achiever or non-achiever. There is nobody who is not pursuing stuff.
Is it so difficult really to earn two square meals a day? The stuff that you call as need. Why do people fail to address even their basic physical needs, even in this age of surplus? Is it because they don’t have desires? No. It is because they have very misplaced desires.
There is nobody who doesn’t have desire. Just because a fellow does not own much or has not been succeeding in the worldly race, does not mean that the fellow has any less desire, than the so-called achiever.
Right desire is needed, and right desire is not for one’s own petty, physical instincts, not in the direction of the usual social commandments, but towards the higher end that beckons all of us — the end of absolute freedom, liberation from all bondages, mental, physical, social, political, ideological. When you pursue that desire, that’s called desirelessness.
Desirelessness does not imply that the fellow who is hungry should not desire for a piece of bread. But that’s the straw manning that is done. If you want to beat an argument, first of all, misconstruct it, misrepresent it — the straw man thing — and then find fault with it. But the concept that you are finding fault with, is not the Nishkam Karm concept at all, you are finding fault with an imaginary concept of your own.
Otherwise, the question could not have come. What does desirelessness mean for those who have not achieved anything in this world? Who has achieved anything in this world? The ones who have achieved; you might not know them, so you feel that they are wallowing in bliss, but they are equally in misery.
Right desire is needed. Obviously, as long as you are that unfulfilled ego, you will have to desire. Ego and desire are two faces of the same coin. So, you will desire. The question is, desire what? Desire the right thing.
You could be a very poor fellow, not having enough stuff to even eat, and yet you might be found queuing outside a liquor shop. And that’s not a very rare happening. Not that the fellow did not really have the money to eat, but he splurged it, blew it up on something totally unworthy. He did not know what to desire.
And if you want to check this out, in some hour of the night, just go to one of these sarkari-licensed shops and look at the gentry assembled there. You’ll not find too many privileged people there.
Somebody is desiring alcohol when he should be desiring something else, and most of these are poor people. I’m not stereotyping, please. I’m not saying, “Poor people are poor because they go and blow their money on alcohol.” No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying, “Just because somebody is people, kindly do not think that the fellow has food as his first desire.” Food is not so inaccessible. If food really becomes your primary desire, you’ll have enough food.
Now, you’ll start talking of vivashta (powerlessness), bondages, helplessness. And we have repeatedly spoken that if you feel helpless or powerless or choiceless in a certain matter, kindly investigate with more honesty. It is the wrong kind of self-interest that renders you helpless.
Choices are always there, including the choice to go higher and be better. But you are unable to exercise that choice because some other stupid desire turns out to be dearer to you.
Getting it?
Desirelessness is not about not wanting anything. Come on. “The one who is preaching nishkam karma is right in the thick of action.” Or is he advising Arjuna to run away? Nishkam Karma is not for absconders.
Nishkam Karma means, I am a human being, I have discretion, and my desire will follow my discretion. I’m not an animal. I’ll not blindly run after instinct. Not that I won’t have desire, but my desire will be secondary to my discretion. That’s desirelessness.
Desirelessness is not when you do not have desire. Desirelessness is when you do not give desire the top position. When you do not put desire at the helm, when you do not make desire the master — that’s called desirelessness.
Getting it?
Your last line says, “What is Nishkam Karma, keeping in mind all this?”
I think I would have spoken for a few thousand hours on this. Why do you want me to reiterate all that? What for have all those recordings been made available to you? Or will you come running to me after every random brainwave? Does not decency demand that you first do your homework? Look at the question — What is Nishkam Karma?
Having spoken for thousands of hours on this, should I start from scratch again? And I haven’t spoken anything new today.