You want it, but you will not get it this way || 'Karma' conversations, Acharya Prashant (2021)

Questioner (Q): When I read the book, there is optimism in it but there is some pessimism in the title of some of the chapters. When you see the people around you, your disciples, you see the larger world, as human beings are we more conscious of our karmas then we ever were?

Acharya Prashant (AP): You mean in the context of the pandemic?

Q: Yes, yes. In the last eighteen months, I think we have realised the fragility of human life; the fact that our lives are interconnected. We realise the fact ‘less is more’, we realise the fact ‘Never say Never’. We realise the fact that these ego’s don’t mean much; you know, you can go away in a matter of seconds. So, are we more conscious of our karma as individuals today, as society today?

AP: You see, what happens is that if one is not coming from the right center, then anything that happens to him or her is prone to be interpreted in a false kind of way. For example, even if I do have a realization that a human birth is quite ephemeral and anything can happen anytime—third wave might strike and such things—I might translate it to mean that I should increase my consumption, I should go on a consumption spree because all that I have left to consume is a few days; so why not make the most of them.

Q: You also have a chapter in the book called ‘How to decide how much to consume’.

AP: Yes. You see consumption is a very important word when it comes to the doer and his doing; because the doer that we take ourselves to be, proceeds from his sense of incompleteness. And so, all doing is actually aimed merely at consumption of some kind—whether implicit or explicit, whether in the name of love or hatred, whether in the name of something material or something spiritual—essentially the ego tries to accumulate, to add something to itself because it has a strong sense of its hollowness, its incompleteness.

And this same consumption has brought us to a point where we have totally vandalized this planet, and we have entered the jungles and we are in contact now with one dangerous virus after the other. I have talked of the UN report that was mentioning—How the clock is ticking faster on us.

So, unless we have this fundamental realization of—where we are coming from, I do not see much hope for us. You said that in some way, all of us have taken a second birth; I really wish that we do take a second birth. In the psychological sense, we desperately require to die the way we have been so far to our pasts, and the book is a small attempt in that direction.

Q: I enjoyed reading books, I am deeply into spirituality. I have a guru, whom I consider to be my friend. He is the one who introduced me to Vedas and one of the things he says is that the Vedas are contextual. Do you agree that karma is also contextual?

AP: No, obviously everything is contextual, except for the Truth everything is contextual. What is meant by something being contextual? It is related to something else, it is related to the background, it is related to the conditions. So, obviously the Truth alone is ‘Niralamb’ or independent or irrespective of anything else, because there is nothing except the Truth.

Therefore, the Truth can have no context to itself; the Truth is its own context. Be it the world, be it anything in the world or be it the one, the person, the ego that perceives the world; everything is obviously contextual. So when we say Vedas are contextual, what we really mean there is that the Vedas are telling us—especially Vedanta—Vedanta is telling us that we are a product of our contexts; that there is nothing absolute or free about the ego.

We are contextual, in other words we are conditioned; and if we see that we are conditioned then there arises a sharp desire towards liberation.

Q: You know your life is a message, what you do is a message, this book is a message. What is your message to a world that is seeking hope, that is seeking answers, that is seeking salvation if I may use that term after reading your book?

I have read your book and it has made me think, it has made me ask a lot of questions. What is the impact that you are looking to make through what you do and through this book?

AP: If there is just one thing I have to say to everybody, one common and universally applicable thing, it would be—Whatever you want and the good that you want to happen to yourself is indeed possible; but not in the way you are attempting to materialise it. All that is wonderful is surely possible to happen, but not being what you are.

Being what you are, you will not get what you deserve; and if want to get what you deserve, then you will have to stop being what you mistakenly are right now.

Q: Beautiful. I am first of all grateful for you input, for your time, for your complete wholesome presence. Thank You, my gratitude.

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