If Everything is Temporary, Why Do Anything?
Questioner: Good Evening Sir. My name is Tarun Singh from IIM Nagpur. Sir my question is this, actually we understand this thing that in life everything is temporary. Be it my existence on this earth, or any relationship, or my friendship, or any environment around me, everything is temporary. So, this thing actually keeps me detached, but at the same time, this thing actually keeps me demotivated to start something new, because I know that ultimately everything is temporary and everything will be gone. So, how to start, or how to keep myself motivated, knowing that everything is temporary?
Acharya Prashant: You see detachment and compassion come together. If you say you have detachment, there must be compassion alongside. What do I mean by that? What is the one source of the entire misery of this world? If you want to talk of detachment, you need to talk of “Anityata.” Right? Things are Ephemeral, but we take them as permanent. We try to seek not only permanence but actually timelessness, where it is not. And that leads to the great amount of misery and violence we see all around us.
So, you are detached because you can see that things are ever-changing, everything is in flux and it’s all a process. There are, in fact, no things either, there is only a stream. Right? I am coming from the Buddha at this moment. You can see all this. But does everybody see all this? And if everybody does not see all this, where is your compassion?
You say you have detachment, where is that necessary accompaniment of detachment, called compassion? Or is detachment something, for just your own benefit? Are you detached just for your own sake? So, you are detached from everything in the world, but not from yourself. I have detachment, and I keep it to myself because I am not detached from myself. Like little kids, who hide their fruits to themselves.
Definitely, detachment would mean that you would now not raise castles in the air. That now you would not do things that are ephemeral and fallible, and expect them to give you desired, favorable, sweet results in the future. Obviously, you will not do that. But don’t you see that everybody around you is doing exactly that? You say you are detached, but you look around and find everybody else is simply attached and that attachment is the misery of this world.
Does that give you an idea as to what to do in life and for what purpose, who’s sake? If you do not want to do anything for your own sake, do it for others. That’s compassion. Do not work for yourself, work for others. And when you work for yourself, your energy is limited because the Personal Self is limited and false. But, when you dedicate yourself to working for the common good, then you find yourself blessed with unlimited energy. And it’s an unending project. So, you will always have something to do. You will never be able to claim retirement. This means you will remain, some part of you will remain quite youthful, right till your physical end.
The great man works extremely vigorously. But that vigor is not for his own sake. That vigor is simply compassion towards everybody. In the Bhagavad Gita, when Arjun is reluctant to fight, of the several things that Shri Krishna tells him, one is, “Arjun, I have nothing to gain from anything. But look at me. I keep continuously working. Then how can you avoid Karma? Arjun, I have nothing to gain from anything, yet I keep continuously working. How then are you trying to abstain from action.” People work so that their own pockets can be filled. So that they can become famous. So that their little, small, Personal Self can be made happy. If you understand life deeply, then you work not for self-gratification, but out of compassion.
So, see what the world needs. And the world needs a lot today. The world might be false to you, but it is not false to everybody else. And when the world is not false to people, then people suffer in the world. You see this. Who is the one who suffers in the world? Who thinks of the world as something substantial, something true? They suffer. So now you have a project waiting for you. And the project is, to bring light to others. The same light, that helps you be detached. Why should that light not shine on everybody else? Yes? The power of work without motivation is immense.
Generally, all we know of, is the energy that arises from motivation and we think of that energy as huge. No, that energy is petty, very, very limited, and small, the energy that arises from motivation. What we do not know of, what is so rarely seen, is immense action without any motive — “Motiveless action.” Nothing beats that. There is something called — a demotivated mind, then there is something called — a motivated mind. And then there is the state of — motivelessness. Motivelessness is the state of the highest energy. Because you are motiveless, therefore you cannot be frustrated. Because you are motiveless, you cannot be defeated. To be motiveless is in a sense to be desireless. Because you are desireless, therefore you can never be called a failure. And because you are motiveless, therefore your work will never be complete.
Desire can be said to have reached its completion when the object of desire is attained. But if there is no object to be desired, then desire is unending. And this is a very special kind of desire, a desire for the immense. And this desire then lends meaning and purpose to life. Now you are after something unending, and the scriptures say, “When you are after something unending, what you get is immortality.” This is then immortality, to immerse yourself in that, which never ends. And that can happen only with motiveless action. The motivation you must see as something very, very petty.
Am I making myself clear?
