Acharya Prashant explains that it is very easy for us to spend our short lives in a delusion. He states that our lives are often random and speculative, where anything can happen. This randomness stems from not understanding our inner workings; if one does not understand the business within, how can one understand the business of the world? He questions how one can claim to understand the world when they do not even understand themselves. Even with our closest relatives, if we start a deep conversation, we see what happens. He uses the analogy of a blind person who, using their blind eyes, is searching for an eye doctor. Similarly, we do not know who to form relationships with, what work to do to earn money, or how to raise our children, yet we claim to have self-knowledge. We often have the notion or belief that we have understood the world and that there are certain things about which we have complete clarity. We never question this belief, nor do we ask ourselves that if we had eyes to see the world clearly, wouldn't we have first seen ourselves with those same eyes? How is it possible to claim to know the world clearly while being afflicted by inner delusion, attachment, anger, greed, and fear? This comparison or analysis is something we never do because it is easy to live in delusion. The speaker points out that the person who is entangled in various ways within themselves is the same person who claims to understand the business of the world very well. The one who understands is you; if you are ignorant in one direction, how can you be wise in another? But belief is a sweet thing that is very appealing. Doubt, disbelief, curiosity, and the search for truth demand courage, effort, pain, and the acceptance of insecurity. It is far better to live in belief, to form some assumption and call it the truth. He explains that we live in a state of fear, a life that is insecure and timid. We put on a mask of self-confidence, but internally we are trembling. This pretense of knowing everything leaves us nowhere. We don't know anything, but there is someone inside who is afraid of the emptiness of not knowing. The fear of not knowing is like the fear of death. Because of this fear, we have to lie at every step that we know. Where we know nothing, we have to show self-confidence. The speaker concludes by explaining that Maya (illusion) has given different forms to everything in nature, and because we can only see the surface, we think things are different. But the seer and the seen are one and the same. If you see dimly in one direction, you will not see anything in the other direction either.
