Acharya Prashant addresses the disparity between the Western pursuit of excellence and the Indian tendency toward settling for security and social conformity. He explains that while the West utilized thought and philosophy to develop science and technology, India discovered truths beyond thought through its sages. However, this great fortune became a misfortune because the masses attempted to emulate the results of the sages—such as the dropping of the mind and detachment from the body—without undergoing the arduous process of using the mind to its fullest potential first. By bypassing thought rather than transcending it, many Indians fell into a state of intellectual stagnation and superstition rather than achieving spiritual liberation.