Acharya Prashant explains that to live like a real man in society, the foremost requirement is understanding. This understanding involves knowing who you are and what the world is. Once you understand this, you will also know what you have to do here. You cannot understand what to do until you know what you are and where you are stuck. When this understanding dawns, it becomes very clear what needs to be done. Then, you do not act to please someone, or due to culture, morality, or tradition. You act because it is imperative; it is the only thing you must do, and there is no other way out. Since that action is essential, you will then arrange for whatever is needed to accomplish it. He elaborates on this using the example of earning money. There are two approaches. The first is to earn money because everyone else is doing it for enjoyment, without ever asking who you are, why you need money, or what you will do with it. This is a blind pursuit. The second approach, illuminated by understanding, is to know what money is and to earn it because it is necessary for an essential task. In this case, money becomes a resource, a tool, and not your master. In the first approach, money becomes your master because you are blind to why you need it, chasing it only for respect. Whatever you acquire in life without understanding will sit on your head and become your master, being of no real use to you, much like a donkey carrying bags of gold. Acharya Prashant mentions Bhartrihari, who realized that what he thought he was enjoying was actually enjoying him. Without understanding, the world is like a serpent that will bite you when touched. He quotes Kabir Saheb, who described the world as a black bitch that eats whoever teases it, and rephrases it as a black female serpent. Everything in this world is like a black serpent; if you touch it, it will bite you. However, if you have understanding, this very nature, this world, and these people will become beautiful resources for you, like nectar. They will not entangle you but will become a path for you to move forward and upward. If you understand why you are touching something, it will not harm you. But if you don't, everything you touch will consume you.