Acharya Prashant explains that we never wish to achieve happiness directly; instead, we always want mediated happiness. This means we set conditions for our happiness, such as believing we will be happy by doing something, through someone, or when we achieve a certain goal. Our happiness is not meditated, but mediated. Between us and true happinessâwhich he refers to as joy, bliss, or 'Anand'âwe always place a condition or a mediator. For example, one might think they will achieve happiness through their wife or a new car; in these cases, the wife and the car are the mediators. The central problem, according to the speaker, is that we always bring in the world as the mediator or a middleman. We believe we will get the truth through the world. As a result, the truth itself becomes unimportant, and the world, the worthless mediator, gains all the importance. The real thing is forgotten and goes for a toss. He urges the listener to question whether it is necessary to be joyful through something and to see if the medium being used is of any real use. Once you see that all the media you have used have been useless, you will question the point of using an intermediary and may try something more direct. The moment you decide that you do not need a mediator and will try on your own, you discover that the truth did not really need to be achieved at all. It doesn't need to be achieved through a mediator, nor does it need to be achieved without one. The fact that the truth does not need to be achieved remains hidden in the shadow of the mediator. The very need to achieve the truth is created by the mediator itself, which promises to deliver the truth if you use, pay, or worship it. The speaker concludes that the opposite is true: the truth is already there. The mediator exists to hide the truth from you. It does not give you happiness; rather, the mediator is blocking your real happiness.
