Acharya Prashant explains a verse from the Mundaka Upanishad: "The 15 parts return into their foundations and all the gods pass into their proper godheads, works and the self of knowledge all become one in the supreme and the imperishable." He clarifies that this verse describes the ultimate state possible for the mind, a state beyond illusion and bondage. The '15 parts' (panchadash kala) are not a literal number but symbolize the mind's fragmentation. These parts, or fragments, must return to the whole. This fragmentation is our suffering, and we all live in this divided condition. The speaker elaborates that the Upanishads are not meant to bring truth to us but to dispel false knowledge through a method of ruthless negation. They address a student who is in illusion but eager to inquire. The Upanishads must be read in the context of this inquiry. The core of the teaching is that we are not one unified being but are divided into many parts, each controlled by different masters like the urge for profit, relationships, or ideologies. These internal parts are in constant conflict, and we are the battleground. We wear different masks for different situations, such as being a devoted child to our parents or a different persona in front of our boss, and we think this is clever management. Acharya Prashant explains that in Vedanta, there are essentially three numbers: zero, one, and the rest (the many). The 'many' refers to the diversity of our sensory experience, which arises from the 'one'—the ego-tendency (aham-vritti), the perceiving entity. This 'one' is not the ultimate reality, Brahman, because nothing arises from Brahman. Instead, the world is Truth appearing as the world due to our ignorance. Experience itself is dualistic; it requires a subject and an object, a backdrop for perception. The experiencer, the 'one', has a compulsion to experience diversity, which in turn creates time and change. All things exist for a perceiver; nothing exists in isolation. Therefore, we are responsible for our experiences and cannot play the victim. The stimulus for desire is caused by a pre-existing latent desire within. If you are not prepared or vulnerable to a particular thing, it will not even exist for you. The message of Vedanta is to have one truthful identity and let your actions reflect the doer, and the doer reflect the Truth. Do not create fragments or assume multiple identities. In the state of liberation, all these fragments disappear.