Acharya Prashant explains that the real teacher has a great responsibility to make himself unnecessary, and the primary duty of the teacher is to make himself redundant. He contrasts this with teachers who are known by their followership, noting that the real ones hardly ever had any followership. You have truly helped someone only if they no longer need your help. However, if a guru has his own self-interest in mind, he will continue to ensure that you return to him day after day, which is achieved by pleasing you. This is a clear indication of the self-interest of the guru. The speaker describes the real teachers as myth-busters and iconoclasts who never pleased their audiences. This is why they received harsh treatment, being discarded, ostracized, stoned, killed, and crucified. They had no concern for the status-quo or for what people liked. They were not pleasant or smiling and did not want to make you feel good. They were not bothered whether you returned to them or not and did not make arrangements for thousands of people to come to them. The rightful role of the teacher is to show that a teacher is not needed and that you are unnecessarily coming to the teacher because you are self-sufficient. To illustrate this, the speaker shares a Zen story where a master cuts off the finger of a mischievous student who unnecessarily keeps raising his hand, leading to the disciple's immediate enlightenment. The real teacher would never be too acceptable or look like a pleasing, fatherly figure, because only that which allows you to continue as you are is pleasing. The teacher's responsibility is to not let you continue as you are. Life itself never allows you to lose the Truth; when you try, you get a tight slap, and when you forget it, you are beaten black and blue. One must have sensitivity towards their own wounds, the scars on the psyche, and the hurt, suppression, and repression on the mind. One must first acknowledge that there is hurt, without needing someone else to point it out. It is important to answer from your own life and interactions, to stare the facts in the face, and to see the world as it is: violent, chaotic, and anarchic. The problem itself is also the solution. The mind is surely mischievous and devious, but in being so, it creates results that offer the scope for a solution. The mind is both the prison and the freedom. You are what you are, and your door opens from there. You need not go anywhere else, as there is a self-correcting mechanism surely in place.