If you go on wanting, how will you ever stop doing?

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

Somebody asks Raman Maharishi, “It is an established rule that so long as there is the least idea of ‘I am the doer’, self-knowledge cannot be attained. But is it possible for an aspirant who is a householder, to discharge his duties properly without this sense?”

Sri Raman Maharishi says:

“As there is no rule that action should depend upon a sense of being the doer, it is unnecessary to doubt whether any action will take place without a doer, or an act of doing.”

“Although the officer of a government treasury may appear, in the eyes of others, to be doing his duty attentively and responsibly all day long, he will be discharging his duties without attachment, thinking I have no real connection with all this money, and without a sense of involvement in his mind. In the same manner, a wise householder may also discharge without attachment the various household duties which fall to his lot according to his past karma, like a tool in the hands of another.”

“Action and knowledge are not obstacles to each other.”

Questioner: Given that I am still struggling with attachments, how do I be a non-doer or practice being one? What should I do when I see myself getting perturbed as a householder, as an employee? A person who has to make decisions every moment, how do I practice being a non-doer and the method of self-inquiry, while taking those decisions?”

Acharya Prashant: See, look at the example the Maharishi gives — an officer working in the…