A questioner expresses her deep emotional turmoil regarding animal cruelty and her gratitude towards Acharya Prashant for addressing this issue. She shares a personal story of finding a suffering kitten and feeling helpless, which intensified her feelings of sadness and guilt. She questions how people who claim to be spiritual can participate in or be indifferent to such cruelty, mentioning practices like consuming meat or using animal products. Acharya Prashant responds by acknowledging the immense scale of animal suffering, stating that he consciously tries to avoid dwelling on it to prevent being overwhelmed, as hundreds of thousands of animals are killed every few minutes. He asserts that if he were to witness such cruelty, he would intervene regardless of the consequences. He explains that those who inflict pain on the weak and helpless are not truly human but are acting like the biggest animals, displaying cowardice by preying on the defenseless instead of confronting real challenges. He says that if you can exploit a weak, helpless animal, you are not a human being. He elaborates that the root of this cruelty is ignorance of the Atma (the Self). The further a person is from their true Self, the more injustice, exploitation, and ignorance will be present in their life. True compassion, he states, is born from the Atma. He cites Mahatma Buddha, who emerged at a time when Sanatana Dharma had degenerated, leading to the exploitation of both humans and animals, and a distortion of the concept of Atma. These three issues—social exploitation, animal cruelty, and ignorance of the Self—are interconnected and were prevalent then as they are now. The solution, he emphasizes, is to remove this ignorance about the Self by returning to the core principles of Vedanta. He advises the questioner to learn the distinction between the Atma and the Anatma (non-self), which is the real difference to understand, rather than the difference between love and compassion. He concludes that only through Self-knowledge can true compassion for all beings arise.