Acharya Prashant responds to the question of how to stop others' thoughts from influencing us by first asking the questioner where this particular question originated. Since the question is the questioner's own, it proves that there is something within us that is not given by others. This inner element is what can see and understand the thoughts that are imposed from the outside. The speaker emphasizes that while others can provide many things, they cannot give us our true reality, who we really are. He uses an analogy: clothes come from outside, but the body does not. Even if the body is considered external, the power to think is not. And even if the power to think is external, the understanding behind the thought is not. At some point, one must stop and find that which is not external. The way to connect with this inner self is to stop believing that we are dependent on others. The core issue is our belief that we are dependent on others for everything important. This is not a fact but a notion that has been instilled in our minds. We are victims of our own naivety, deluded into thinking we are dependent. The solution is to withdraw the permission we have given others to occupy our minds. The problem is not that others give us thoughts, but that we give them too much importance and allow them to dominate us. We must use our own understanding and discretion to evaluate the information we receive, rather than blindly accepting it. To a follow-up question about everything we think, understand, or learn being external, the speaker uses the example of a camera. A camera can record everything, but it can never understand what it is recording because it is just matter; it has no soul of its own. The difference between a human and an inanimate object is this inherent ability to understand. Thought can come from the outside, but understanding cannot. The ability to understand is our own. What you need to gain comes from your own understanding. The speaker concludes that we are all victims of our naivety. We are good, simple people who have readily believed what we were told. But naivety is only beneficial when backed by understanding; otherwise, it becomes foolishness. He advises maintaining naivety but with the support of understanding.