Acharya Prashant defines responsibility as the combination of response and ability, emphasizing that it is the capacity to respond rather than a fixed duty. He distinguishes between responding and reacting, noting that a response arises from the alive present and involves love, leading to universal welfare even if it seems bitter initially. In contrast, a reaction stems from dead conditioning and past training, involving habits and duties that ultimately lead to universal suffering. While reactions are predetermined and habitual, a true response is new, unpredictable, and depends entirely on the specific situation. He further explains that what society often labels as responsibility is actually a collection of duties imposed through conditioning. These duties are taught by entities like society, parents, and religious institutions to serve their own vested interests and maintain control. Acharya Prashant asserts that love is not a duty and that performing actions out of a sense of duty without love is humiliating. True responsibility requires an inherent understanding and the ability to face any situation freshly as it arises, rather than following a pre-trained script of obligations toward family or nation.
