A questioner named Ashwin explains that he is unable to fully immerse himself in his work, whether it's trading or construction. He holds a belief from a previous guru that one should remain a witness to one's actions, keeping a part of the mind separate to observe. This prevents him from getting fully involved, even in work he considers right. He asks whether this detached approach is correct or if he should immerse himself completely. Acharya Prashant responds that this notion of witnessing is wrong, useless, and even harmful. He clarifies that everyone should understand the true meaning of witnessing so that no confusion remains. He explains that we are an unsatisfied consciousness. For such a consciousness, the right thing to do is to immerse oneself in the work that pacifies this dissatisfaction. The right work is one that removes the very entity that considers itself unsatisfied. There is no alternative to immersing oneself in the right work. When you immerse yourself in the right work, a special phenomenon occurs: you become indifferent to the rest of the world. You find something that calms your restlessness, something in which you lose track of time. This state itself is the state of being a witness, a state of detachment. Acharya Prashant questions, "Detached from what?" A sick person does not need to be detached from medicine; they need to be detached from things they must avoid. We are a diseased consciousness; the name of a diseased mind is a human. A sick person should not be a witness to their medicine. Detachment is needed from all those things that have made you sick and that increase your sickness. The name for immersing oneself in the right work is witnessing. When you are immersed in your work, you don't know or care what's happening in the world. The user equates this to being unconscious, to which Acharya Prashant agrees, calling it the intoxication of Ram. He explains that our ordinary consciousness is our disease, and one must abandon it to become 'unconscious' in that sense, which can also be called a higher consciousness. Acharya Prashant further clarifies that he is not against stock trading for a livelihood, but one should not have the illusion that this work will lead to liberation or the state of a witness. He advises to first choose the right work and then immerse oneself in it; only then can one become a witness. The work worth doing is one that is so challenging it shatters the ego. The work that can be accomplished while remaining as you are is not the real work; real work is something else, while livelihood is a different matter.
