Source: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/karmanya-vaadhikaaraste-1_f80d3f9 Verse: You have the rights to your actions, but not the fruits of your actions.
- He starts to think from two centers: The center of truth or clarity, and the center of confusion or assumption
- He says from the center of assumption or belief, the believer exists, and that is the proof of his belief
- He says also that the existence of an action is what seems to imply the existence of an actor
- He says that from there, the order of the universe seems to imply the existence of God
- He says this is how the ego sees things
- If the ego sees a car moving on the road, he assumes there is a driver.
My comment: That’s not necessarily true, and it’s also spooky when you see there’s no driver.
- It says that since it can experience the show, then someone must be running the show
My comment: Yeah, but it does not really imply that that agent is separate from you. You can make a game and walk right into it.
- He says this is simply because action is the only way in which the ego proves its existence
- If doer-ship does not exist, then ego has no existence.
- He says action exists, and change is constant.
- So being is becoming.
- In that sense, there seems to be no one who can claim the ownership of the show.
- Neither do we see anyone running the show.
- Then we make two assumptions, and these two assumptions are the root of all human suffering.
- One is the one that’s running the larger show, or God, and the other running the smaller show, or ego.
- These are the assumptions we made on the basis of the presupposition of doer-ship to actions.
- We think the moon is attracted to the earth, and that attraction should thus be driven by God.
- We think we are attracted to the girl next door, and that attraction is driven by ourselves.
- In that sense, both God and Ego are defined on the basis of the same assumption, of action.
- For every action, we suppose a causer, like the house needing an owner, or kids needing to be given birth.
- Now, we don’t deny the action, and the actions have causes.
- Species are coming in from somewhere, galaxies are behaving the way they do.
- Some species come and go in 5 seconds, others take longer, the animate and the inanimate have life cycles.
- So at the aggregate level, there is God, and at the personal level, there is you.
- You cannot be a believer in God and not be egoistic, and vice versa.
- The logical fallacy here is that one assumes that because there is action, there is an actor.
- This is why if religion is not based on philosophy, its based on superstition.
My commentary: Yes. If you take complete system where each part affects the other (it’s not a thermodynamic system, where the universe = system + arbitrary surroundings, but a universe treated as a system), and you take a subsystem from it, the subsystem can observe that the rest of the system (it’s surroundings) behave according to some rules, and it is a part of it, and to it, that implies a creator of the system. But then, the subsystem does not realize that the subsystem is an important part of the system, without which the system won’t run.
In other sense, the system and the subsystem are co-eternal, although both change. That is, if you remove the subsystem arbitrarily from the system, then the system won’t be able to complete its trajectory as it would otherwise. The subsystem’s place in a given moment, although it will change the next moment, has effects on the system at all points in time. We cannot call such a subsystem insignificant to the system, and can only see it as non-different from the system.
- So if you ask a believer, he will say that because everything exists, there has to be a causer.
- But this is based on an unverified assumption, that every action has a causer.
My comment: In fact, this is true (i.e. that it does not follow). For example, one can accidentally perform actions, and this does not mean they caused it. They were not even paying any attention to it, and nor would it be their responsibility. Other people want to ascribe responsibility on to them, but that does not make it true. If they had their will, they would not have done it, and that’s why it is an accident. In fact, all events that happen do so without will, simply because our desires are not out of our own free will. In the same sense, there is no reason to assume that the ultimate set of actions has a causer. To make such a claim, one would need to use some different reasons.
- In fact, all action is without an actor.
- That is the message of the Bhagavad Geetha.
- That is the message of all spirituality.
- In fact, the moment an actor comes into a self-imposed existence, it condemns itself to suffering.
- Existence is suffering, because existence is false.
- It’s like going to an uninvited party. You do no exist, and are not invited. But you want to be there.
- Now the doer is interesting. If you are the doer, you must have control over the results, right?
- In fact, the doer wants to have control over the results, and that is the cause of all suffering.
- For example, if you see a car moving without a driver, and you say wow a driverless car, and someone says no, I’m controlling it with a stick, you will ask them to prove it by stopping it.
- Because only then can you prove that you are the doer.
- For the ego, this is matter of life and death.
- Because if you can’t prove that you are the doer, then you do not exist.
- If you prove that you are not the doer, the ego doesn’t just become still, it disappears.
- So I have to somehow prove it.
- If you show the remote, that’s not enough, because the person will ask you to prove it.
- So for the ego, the future is always important. Because only when you prove that you are the doer will you be satisfied.
- Now this is why we are all control freaks.
- To us, if we cannot control the outcome, then we do not even exist.
- That’s why mankind needs to know of a heaven and a hell.
My comment: That’s insightful. One’s existence is rooted in their desire to know what they will be post-eternity.
- So the ego is simply something that lays claim over all actions.
- If someone sees a 500 Rs. note lying on the ground, they pick it up and ask whose it is, and hope no one hears it, and takes it as their own.
- The ego thinks, it belongs to someone, but no one has claimed it, so it belongs to me.
My comment: This is actually a different case, of lying.
- Now when you wake up in the morning, no one claims that they woke you up.
- So the ego decides, I woke up.
- How absurd is this claim.
My comment: Haha, that’s a meaningful one.
- Most of us won’t even decide to go to sleep.
- He says he’ll have proof in 15 minutes, as half of his audience will go to sleep soon.
- So the note goes in the pocket.
- Now if there was a claimant, you’d let them claim.
- But the problem is that you want a claimant in the form of a person.
- But the claimant is a system, not a person.
- There is a doer, but the doer is not a person.
- That doer is Prakrthi.
- Since Prakrthi is everything, it cannot come see you in person, because you are a part of it.
- If you throw a ball up, can you ask who threw it down to you?
- The law of gravitation says everything pulls on everything.
- So even Jupiter is pulling on the ball, but should Jupiter say it threw it back to you?
- No, because it’s not just Jupiter, but every body in the universe.
- Everything from each grain of sand gave it to you, but you ask who gave it to you?
- It is a system that does everything.
- But you look for a person for every action because you are a person.
- It is in the same way that you look for God as a person.
- If there is a mover, it is not a person, it is a system.
- You can worship the system, there is no flaw in it.
- But you never worship the system, you look for someone running the system.
- No, the system runs itself.
- The ego is concerned with the result because if you did not have control over the result, then you were not the doer in the first place.
- The universe is in control of everything, but you want to be he boss. That is why you are stressed out.
- It’s like someone driving a car, and you are a bacterium sticking on the wheels, thinking you are the driver.
- You feel that it must turn left, but even your feeling is not your feeling.
- The bacterium is stressed out because it wants to turn left but it does not.
- But one out of hundred times, it will turn left, and it will give hope for the bacteria for the next 200,000 years that it controls the car.
My commentary: LMAO, it explains history. I actually feel like us playing which car will overtake which in the back of the school bus.
- The bacteria tells the car to turn left a 100 times, and it does once, and it thinks, yes, I did it, and I can do it again.
- The basic laws of history say that even if the probability of some event is near zero, it can still happen.
- But then when it does, we include it in our history books saying this is the result of human endeavour.
My commentary: LMAO. He made the same point.
- Every family in the neighbourhood of 100 families wants their kids to become rich.
- But the probability is that 1 in 100 kids will become rich.
- So in a neighbourhood, one kid will surely become rich.
- That is regardless of whether you wanted it or not.
- But it’s very hard to acknowledge let alone digest, because if you acknowledge it, you are just dead, not just inwardly.
My commentary: I don’t necessarily fully agree here. This is fatalism, but though one’s actions are not their own doing, it is predictable by the behaviour of the system, which one is going to become rich. In that way, we can learn which will become which. It may break the rules by complexity, but for the most part, we have reliable estimates.
- This is what drives the common man. He is not concerned about liberation.
- He wonders whether he can build the next new home, or if he can turn his kids into billionaries.
- If you take this away, he will live in a void.
- So he will not acknowledge that it would have happened regardless of him exerting his agency.
- This is the state of the ego. It keeps hoping or working absurdly about it.
- The bacteria in the car’s tyre is working hard to ensure that it turns left.
My commentary: Hold on. So far I feel that Indians focus on how “life” is beyond our control. But you know, a pen would move if we move it. Although our desire to move it, or how other broader actions are beyond our control. The fact that the pen would move itself could’ve been in the timeline. But to say that the bacteria hoping to move the car and a man hoping to move a pen by his hands are the same is a mistake. One is a case of false agency, while the other is a case of correct agency, although the agency could be limited.
- Common man works tirelessly.
- But we are not supposed to work that much.
- British economist Keynes said in 1930 that we’ll in the next 100 years, we’d have so much technology that we’ll have 15 hour work weeks.
- And someone said that electricity would become so cheap that it wouldn’t need to be metered.
- None of that has materialized.
My commentary: Blame that on Ego and capitalism.
- In fact, we work much harder today.
- That’s because we work for something that cannot be achieved.
- So there is no reason for working so hard today.
- Life can be for purposeless enjoyment.
- We work harder because we are not working for our improvement.
- If you work for a tangible purpose, then there will be an end to the work.
- But otherwise, if you are trying to prove you exist when you do not, it will be ad infinitum.
- You won’t even complete 1%.
- To complete something, the work has to be finite
- If you ask someone to run to the horizon, how long will he be running?
My commentary: Yeah, I realized that I’ve often been chasing the horizon, but I couldn’t grasp what exactly was what made it seem that way.
- That is why Shri Krishna said: “Karmanye Vaadhikaaraste Maa Phaleshu Kadachan”