Acharya Prashant explains that what you think you are doing, you are not actually doing. It only seems to you that you are doing it. From behind, your tendencies, your polluted master, is making you do it. This master is not God, but the ego and the fifty other physical and social masters sitting behind. So, even what you think you are doing, you are not doing. You have done nothing. It only seems to you that you had a choice, but in reality, there was no choice. If there were a choice, you could have done something other than the choice you made. But in reality, you could not have made any other choice because you have been well-conditioned to make that particular choice. So where is the choice? You have been well-conditioned that when a black and a white handkerchief are presented to you, you must choose the white one. And you say that when the black and white handkerchiefs came before you, you chose the white one. You are lying, aren't you? Where was the choice? You were already conditioned. You did not choose anything; the one who chose is someone else who has tutored you. This is called seeing inaction in action, meaning that the action you performed, you did not actually perform it; someone else made you do it. Just like when a small child makes a mistake, the first thing we ask is, 'Whose child are you? Who are your parents? Is this what your parents taught you?' Similarly, behind all of us, there is a father sitting, not the one who gave birth to the body, but one sitting inside. He is making us do everything. We don't consider a child's actions as their own. If they do something wrong, we immediately say, 'Bring the parents.' Why? Because their action is also inaction. Whatever they are doing, they are not doing it; their parents are making them do it. This is clear in the case of a small child. When one grows up, there is an illusion that whatever one is doing, one is doing it themselves. But they are not doing anything themselves. The choice of their job is being made by someone else. The choice of their life partner is being made by someone else. What they will eat, what they will wear, what kind of ideology they will follow—all this is being made to happen by someone from behind. So, none of their actions are their own. All actions are inaction. And all inaction is action because the one sitting behind, you are the one who has given them permission to sit there. So, by the fact that something is inaction, you are not absolved of the matter, you are not exonerated. Because you are the one who has given permission for that one to sit behind and turn your actions into inaction. You have given that permission. That's why inaction is action. The day you decide that no one will control me from behind, from that day you will be free. The one sitting behind, making you dance like a puppet, you have created that arrangement. He is making you dance, but you are the one who has seated him there. Or, let's say, however he is seated, the option to get up and throw him out has always been with you. And if you haven't used that option yet, we will assume that you are the one keeping him there. That's why inaction is considered action. You have full participation, full responsibility for the one sitting behind. If you wanted to remove him, you would have done so long ago. This is the matter of action and inaction.
