Why Do We All Act so Blindly?

Questioner: * I am Darshan, and my question is very simple yet complicated. So why do we not work? So even after knowing that if we work, we will get something that we are looking for. So, to take an example, I had the opportunity to interact with a lot of social startups. So many of them are working towards climate change. So, a few startups might be working towards climate change, even if we see it at individual levels.

We know that if we do not use plastic, segregate garbage waste, do not use AC, or maybe some other alternative for that matter, we could actually bring about a lot of change. We are eight billion people, and if everyone, maybe even half the world, is working towards it, there could be a drastic change in the climate, though we're not actually working on it. So, what could be the reason for that?

Acharya Prashant: See, when you say, ‘We do not work.’ it's not that we really do not work. Every single person is indeed working but just according to his or her own limited perception and self-interest.

There is nobody who does not work. Even if somebody decides not to work, that's that person's definition of work. For example, when you ask someone, ‘Hey, what did you do all day?’ And the fellow says, ‘Oh, I just slept’ or ‘I was just lying on the bed.’

Isn't that in response to what did you do all day? So that's what he was doing, lying on the bed. So that's his doing; he is working. The trouble is, according to his perception from where he is looking and with the limited clarity that he is looking, that was the only suitable work he could take up: lying on the bed, dozing, sleeping.

Are you getting it?

So, if you want people to do the right work, you first of all need them to have the right clarity. When I know who I am, then I also know what I must do! At least let me know what my situation is. There's a fire in the room, and you are fast asleep. Somebody comes and just wakes you up, and then you do not need to be told what to do. Nobody needs to motivate you, either. Just having seen what the situation is like, you gallop away at top speed. There is a fire in the room. You have to run away, don't you? Now, if you are sleeping and a friend of yours comes to me and asks, ‘Why doesn't she work?’ I mean, ‘Why doesn't she move?’ The answer is ‘Because she is asleep. Because she is not conscious.’

So, people do not work because they do not know they are not conscious. Even if they think that they know, they know in a very hazy kind of way, in an inebriated state. Their vision is quite blurred. If you are drunk, what happens to your vision? Or if the windscreen has a lot of moisture deposited on it, what happens to your vision? And what happens when you drive in the fog? So, the real problem is not about action. The real problem has to do with the actor. The actor is not all right. The nature of the actor is consciousness, and the actor is not fully conscious. And therefore, the actor is making very wasteful, suboptimal, and even harmful decisions. Are you getting it?

So, when I have no idea about my being, I have neither bothered to have knowledge of the world nor to observe my own ways. So, I know neither the world nor myself. Then why will I worry about something like climate change? I know neither the facts of the world nor do I know what it is within the human being that leads to climate catastrophe. Why would I work?

Climate activists often ignore this basic thing. So, they want to stir us into action without, first of all, ensuring that we have enough clarity. An action without clarity is just a blind rush. A blind rush that won't last. You will stumble, you will fall, and you will fall asleep.

Are we together? Is this clarifying the thing, or is there something else you want to ask?

Questioner: I understand it, but again, is it because we are not aware? And even if we are aware, are we not actually doing something? So, is it because of internal motivation? Because human beings are innately lazy? That could be one of the reasons, right?

Acharya Prashant: No, it's not that we are lazy. We prefer to do a few things. Nobody is lazy. When you do not prefer to do something, you unconsciously call it laziness! Is anybody ever so lazy that he doesn't fall on the bed? Is somebody ever so lazy that he misses her meals? So, it's not that people are lazy. Students are too lazy to come to the college. But are students ever so lazy that they refuse to return from college? And the distance between the home and college remains the same, right?

You say, ‘I was so lazy. Oh, the distance is twelve kilometers; I didn't come.’ Now that you have come, the distance is still twelve kilometers. Why aren't you lazy enough to stay put in college? Why are you not going home? So laziness is just a preference. Nobody is really lazy. When it comes to the fulfillment of desire. Even the laziest person becomes super active.

Just check what a person really desires, and you will find how quickly he shuns his laziness. So why do people not act? Because even if they know the facts of the world, they do not see how those facts affect their own being. If you can make them see that, they will move, they will act.

So, biodiversity is depleting, species are going extinct, and CO2 levels are 420 ppm. And the fellow says, ‘Well, how does any of that matter to me? How does any of that matter to me?’ That's the missing link. Can you establish the link? Can you display to him that ‘it indeed does matter to you!’ That it is a personal thing. It's not about what's happening in the world; it's happening to you, Actually.

You are being personally hit by climate change. If he can see that, he will move. As long as he cannot see that, he will not act. But we expect them to act out of a moral obligation or a social responsibility. That does not last long. Just to look good or just to please his conscience, he will act for a while in a timid way, take some half-hearted measures, and then he will drop out.

If you want somebody to be fully enrolled in a massive project, first of all, you have to ensure that the project becomes a personal thing to him or her. It cannot remain professional, social, or external. It has to become internal and personal.

‘It is my thing.’ I am not fighting for the climate; I am fighting for myself. Because now I see that the climate is me. I am not fighting for the other species. I am fighting for myself. Because now I see that the other species are all me. I am not fighting for the kids or the elderly, or a woman, I am fighting for myself because I see that I am the kid, I am the elderly, and I am the woman! If I do not see that, then I will just be an ordinary do-gooder, and those don't go far.’ As long as the feeling of otherness will remain, your openness to help the other will remain limited.

Nobody can go beyond a point to help the other because the other, by definition, is the other. You have to have the clarity to see others as yourself.

Are you getting it?

There is a fire in the neighbor’s house, and you are smug and selfish and are not doing anything about it. But the fire has now spread so much that the flames are about to consume your own house. Then, you will suddenly become a social activist. Then you will say, ‘Oh, I want to douse the flames in my neighbor’s house.’ Because now you can see that the neighbor’s house is your own house and the other house, gutted, is your own house - gutted. If he goes, you too go. The two of you are one. That has to be shown, and that remains to be shown. That has not been shown. NGOs, student groups, activists – they all still talk the language of selflessness.

They say, ‘You must be selfless to help others.’ The fact is, you must realize where truly your selfish self-interest lies. And when you realize that, you see that your self-interest is inseparable from that of others. And that's when you are moved into action. And that's why Vedant is so important, because it brings forward that which unites us, and then the differences disappear. And when differences disappear, only then are you able to be good to each other.

If the other is outside, on the other side of the wall, why should the other matter to me? That's a practical question. The other will not matter to me. Let there be life. And let's assume there is life on some other distant planet as well. There must be. The universe is just so large that it's quite probable there is life elsewhere as well. Does it matter to you what's happening on that particular planet?

Because the other is the other, and your life is not connected to the life on that planet. So even if there is a huge nuclear war or something like a mass extinction on that planet, you do not bother. And you actually need not bother. Here, you need to understand that everything is interrelated. Interrelated not just in the physical sense but also in a very inner and metaphysical sense.

That is Vedant. And if you want to keep Vedanta aside, because sometimes people take it as some kind of sectarian, partisan thing, then keep Vedanta aside. Just talk about self-knowledge. Self-knowledge.

The more you know yourself, the more you know that you are not a distinct entity and that the world is not comprised of a million distinct entities; we are together! We all are one! And we are not one just externally; internally, there is a point where there are no differences. And we all aspire to reach that point. And if we cannot reach that point, then there is no hope, no peace, and no joy for any of us. If we remain in that which makes us distinct from others, we will remain restless.

Usually, the woman likes to remain as a woman; the man likes to remain as a man. Now, there can be no peace in that. The Hindu likes to remain as a Hindu, the Muslim as a Muslim, the rich as the rich, and the poor as the poor. There can be no peace because you are remaining in that which makes you distinct from the other.

Vedant makes it clear that you have to abide by that which makes you indistinct from anybody, anywhere. What is that thing that is indistinct? Common, universal, beyond change, beyond division.

When you start going into that, that's when there is a flowering of real compassion, and then you can work for the animals, for others, for the world in general. So, I keep telling whenever I meet climate activists, vegan activists, or people who work against animal cruelty or for other noble, generous causes, I keep telling them, ‘Unless there is a spiritual core to your work, it won't go far. The climate crisis cannot be handled without an awakening of self-knowledge. People will continue to be cruel to animals if they do not know who they are internally?’ Is it all going too abstract or fast?

Questioner: I have a follow-up question. I understood that there is a need of desire, that you need something that you're doing for yourself. There should be a feeling because being selfless has limitations. So, my question is, How do you awaken that selfishness or that desire within a person? Or yourself, in fact. So, I know there are going to be certain benefits if I study and get good scores. So, how do I bring that desire to study to get that good score? Because even if I knew, I am not actually studying.

Acharya Prashant: No, you have to link your good scores to the fulfillment of your most basic and most important desire. So that's true. If you study, you will get good marks. If you get good marks, you get good grades and then an overall better CGP or something. And then maybe you will be a gold medalist. Maybe.

But that inner restless thing asks, ‘So what? ’

You tell yourself you have an exam coming. You tell yourself, ‘I must study; I will get good marks.’

The inner bird says, ‘So what?’

Then you tell yourself, ‘Good marks mean good grades.’

The inner bird again asks, ‘So what?’

Then you say, ‘A higher whatever. A better placement? Yes, a better placement.’

The inner once again says, ‘So what?’

Then you say, ‘Better placement means more money. More money, more respect.’

The inner voice again says, ‘So what?’

What does this series of so-whats tell you? It tells you that the inner thing is desirous of neither of these actually, the inner human discontentment that we all have, irrespective of who we are, where we come from, et cetera, that inner discontentment cannot be fulfilled by marks or grades or placement or money or whatever. Otherwise, the inner bird would have just smiled and gone silent. But it keeps retorting, does it not? ‘So what?’

And unless you take it on board unless you convince it, you will not get its cooperation. So, it does not cooperate. You want to study. It says, ‘So what? I want to do something else.’

And whatever else you do it again says, ‘So what?’ When you were studying, she was saying, ‘No, “So what?’

And then you said, ‘Fine, let me watch a movie.’ To your horror, she again says, ‘So what?’

What does that tell you?

That tells us that there is something very unique, very special, that the inner thing is longing for. And the purpose of life is to identify that thing that you really want and then go after it with all your might, endlessly.

And that is true selfishness to ask yourself, ‘Hello! Hello! Beyond all the little objects of desire, all the common things that people run after, what is it that I truly want? Let me be absolutely selfish.’

And it's not a superficial thing. You will not just be served the inner secret on a platter. You will have to observe yourself. You will have to ask yourself difficult questions. And you'll have to be patient with yourself to know what your heart really beats for. What does that little bird pine for? And that true selfishness, as the wise ones have told us, is all-inclusive.

Once you know what you want immediately, without fail, you also know that's the thing that everybody wants. Outside, we are all different and distinct; Inwardly, we all have a common want. Once you come in touch with your own wants, it becomes impossible for you to remain indifferent, insensitive, or cruel to others.

That, we said, is the flowering of true compassion. True selfishness is true compassion. Knowing yourself, it becomes impossible for you not to help others. In fact, then, you even do not try to help others. Your every action assumes the nature, the quality of help. Irrespective of what you are doing, you find you are in some way helping the universe. Are you getting it?

Selfishness is not about pinching something from a shop without paying for it. Or about copying from somebody's answer sheet or stealing somebody's assignment and submitting it in your name. No, that's not selfishness.

Selfishness is a great, great virtue. Selfishness is self-love. Selfishness is self-knowledge. It is superfluous selfishness that we must watch out against. True selfishness is something we must aspire for, and it's inexorable. You are the self, right? How can you not be selfish? It is your duty towards yourself to be truly selfish. If you are not being selfish, then, in some sense, you are guilty of a crime against yourself. So see who you are. See what it is that you want. Speak to that bird with some intimacy and some love, and you will find out whether it's the cause of the climate, the oppressed sections of society, or the cause of the homeless, or the malnourished ones, or there is just so much suffering in the world. Is there not?

If you start listing the causes a young person can possibly take up, they are just endless. It is estimated we are losing probably a hundred or a thousand species per day today. So, there is so much that needs to be done. There is so much that a young person must invest herself into. But none of that will be possible if you are not in touch with your inner bird.

Questioner: What I've understood is that for us to do any work, any kind of desire, or any goal that we want to achieve, there is a need to find a desire towards it. That is something that is parallel to your small bud or the small voice that you have inside of you.

Acharya Prashant: Yes, that desire must come from the right reason, and the right reason arises from the right realization. Otherwise, desire is usually blind. Everybody is desirous. And that does not help. That desire must come from clarity. Clarity must be the reason you desire it. You say, ‘I want something.’ There has to be a reason, right? Somebody can ask why.

And then your clarity must have the answer. For that clarity, you need to observe your life, your ways, your instincts, the way thoughts arise, feelings arise, everything. You need to observe the world. The way people operate with each other, the way companies go for profits, the way nations quarrel with each other, and the way the entire course of history has been, So, you have to read a lot, and that helps. And you also have to observe your own life.

Questioner: Maybe something similar to a book I read ‘Men's Search for Meaning.’

Acharya Prashant: Viktor Frankl, Yes.

Questioner: Yes, Something similar to that.

Acharya Prashant: Yes, of course.

Questioner: Thank you.

Acharya Prashant: All the best.

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