Acharya Prashant responds to a question about whether he fears the mysterious powers or practitioners of tantra, given his frequent talks against such practices. He laughingly challenges them, inviting all ghosts, spirits, exorcists, individual souls, and those with subtle bodies to prove him wrong by doing something to him. He dares them to kill him, make him mad, or cause any harm, stating that his entire life has been lived in complete opposition to all such superstitions. He mentions that he has never used any mantra, yantra, or tantra, nor has he given importance to stones, rings, rosaries, or threads. He has defied all superstitious rules, like sleeping in a particular direction or waking at an auspicious time, and says he deserves a severe punishment for these violations. He extends an open invitation to all ghosts and tantrics to come and do their worst. Acharya Prashant then explains the psychology behind the fear of such forces. He states that within every person lies a point of ignorance. Because one does not know the ultimate Truth, one is susceptible to believing that false things might be true. This fear exists even in highly educated people and scientists if they are ignorant of their inner reality. Shrewd people exploit this inner fear by creating a 'mystical area' or 'other dimensions of life' between the material and the metaphysical. They claim things like ghosts are neither fully material nor non-material, which reflects an ignorance of both science and spirituality. He clarifies that anything that can be experienced, like being seen, must be material because the senses themselves are material. The belief in the non-material having material attributes is a fundamental misunderstanding. The root cause of this fear and superstition is the distance from Truth. Because we are scared, it is very easy to scare us; and we are scared because we are far from the Truth. The punishment for being far from Truth is getting caught in these cycles of superstition and being exploited by those who peddle amulets and exorcisms. He asserts that when one fully understands that they are the body and nothing remains after its destruction, two things happen. First, one starts living life correctly, aware of its finite nature. Second, one loses all fear of things like cremation grounds at night, because the belief in a lingering soul or ghost disappears. The belief in the occult is a direct measure of how wrongly one is living their life. He concludes by reiterating that his entire life is a challenge to falsehood.
