Do you know your real self-interest?

The following excerpt is from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner : A month back I asked a question on ‘numbness’, and how it affects my life. You gave me a good lesson on self-centeredness, and explained that if I am not able to do much for myself, then I should start working for others so totally, that I forget myself.

There is one thing that I do not understand. ‘I’, the self-centered one, knows only self-centered action. If that is the starting point for helping others, then won’t that too turn out as subtle selfishness?

Acharya Prashant: It’s okay.

It is not the ‘self-centeredness’ that is problematic, misplaced ‘self-centeredness’ is problematic, incomplete ‘self-centeredness’ is problematic.

When you say that you are being ‘self-centered’, what is it that you are centered on? That which you are as ‘the self’ do you know it? Know it, and then be ‘self-centered’.

It is okay. No problem.

In fact, there is actually no option but to be ‘self-centered’.

Whatever man does, he would always be ‘self-centered’. Doesn’t matter whether you are the lowly looter, or the highest Saint — both are ‘self-centered’. It is just that one knows the self, and the other does not.