What's The Right Action?

Acharya Prashant: The desire is to be able to distinguish between the true and the false, the wise and the unwise, the real and the unreal, right action, and the wrong action. That is the desire. The only thing is that whatever will come out of the desire, will necessarily be a misplaced action. The very desire of the wrong action is, that it is an action coming out of desire. Now, if I desire to know the right action, can I ever know the right action?

Please go into the situation. What is the right action? Right action is that which comes from actually nowhere, just happens. And therefore, it is fresh. And therefore, it does not need the assistance of the past. I want the right action. When I say, “I want the right action”, surely I have an image in mind. I say, “This is the right action”, that image is coming from the past but the right action by definition is the one that cannot come from the past. This means, that all my efforts to distinguish between right and wrong, wise and unwise, true and false, will always be unsuccessful or will appear successful but will yield very harmful results.

It is an auspicious sign if one wants to make that distinction. We want to know the difference between love and hate. We want to know the difference between right living and wrong living. The only thing is what is the agency, that will decide on this? Who will decide? Who will be the judge? Now, if I am the judge, then the beginning to find the right action is itself a wrong beginning. I want to find out what is the right action for me. Remember, the right action. And my first action in finding out this right action itself is wrong.