Acharya Prashant explains that Karma, or action, is the association of oneself as the doer with the doing. He clarifies that while the action itself happens in the domain of the senses and the mind, the individual is not inherently the doer but rather associates with the action. This association arises from a desire for the fruits of the action. To claim the fruit, one must first claim ownership of the action, which is the essence of doership. This leads to a cycle of self-deception. The first deceit is claiming to be the doer when one is not. The second is fooling oneself into believing that a particular process will yield the same desired experience it did in the past. The third and most fundamental deceit is the assumption that the past experience was genuinely satisfying. The speaker argues that if the past had been truly fulfilling, it would have liberated the individual from the need to repeat it. The very fact that one is still seeking satisfaction proves the past was not as great as remembered. This is why self-help techniques based on visualizing and replicating past successes are flawed; they are based on a faulty premise. The speaker contrasts this with Nishkam Karma, or action without attachment to the outcome. This involves doing what is right and then letting go of the consequences. To achieve this, one needs inner strength (Atma-bal) that comes from a commitment to Truth, which helps overcome the 'Tamasic inertia'—the heavy momentum of the past. Ordinary action is often just a continuation of this momentum, an indiscriminate choice to repeat the past. Nishkam Karma, however, is to act rightly and then leave the results, understanding that if the action is right, the consequence cannot be wrong, regardless of how one's conditioned mind perceives it.