Acharya Prashant explains that illusion (Maya) is only as powerful as one wants it to be, as it depends entirely on the individual for its sustenance. If you find illusion dominating you, it is because you have wanted it to be so. He urges one to never forget their essential reality, which is beyond the immediate facts of life. You are, in reality, all-powerful, though this is not testified by the way you live, eat, breathe, act, and think. We live lives of helpless compulsiveness, which makes it seem impossible to believe we are omnipotent. However, this omnipotence is our essential reality, which means we can never truly be puppets. Whatever happens to us occurs with our due consent. Unless one acknowledges this truth, there can be no remembrance of the true self. If you remain insistent that you are a struggling, defeated, and limited being, that belief will become your false destiny. Spirituality's only instrument for your welfare is your own realization. It does not consist of using muscles, machines, or even the intellect beyond a certain point in the spiritual process. The only instrument that ultimately works is the acknowledgment of your own power. Spirituality is about addressing your own intention. He illustrates this with an analogy: a person is sitting in the driver's seat of a car with the handbrake fully engaged, yet is begging others to push the car. People representing discipline (Yoga), devotion (Bhakti), action (Karma), knowledge (Gyan), and esoteric practice (Tantra) all come to help push, but the car won't move. This is because the driver, who has control of the handbrake, is the one preventing the movement. The speaker concludes that no spiritual path—be it devotion, action, knowledge, or discipline—can help if you, the one in control, do not truly want to be helped.
