Acharya Prashant explains the fundamental difference between Vedanta and the self-help genre. He states that self-help books, in general, want to help the self without investigating what the self really is. In the name of self-help, what is usually advised is the gratification of the self. The self is taken as a fundamental and unchangeable entity that is not to be questioned. The entire purpose of a self-help book, then, is to remove the obstacles in the path of gratification of that self, which has been turned into a sacred entity. For example, if the self has certain desires, the book will tell you how to fulfill all your desires and dreams, but it will rarely ask unsettling questions like, "What is it that you want?", "Where are your wants coming from?", or "Are your desires even yours?" People avoid these questions because they challenge their basic identity and sense of existence, which is disturbing. People would rather have false security than a true exploration of the truth. The speaker clarifies that the "self" which self-help addresses is the central falseness, the ego. It is the ego that is always helpless and seeking support. In self-help, the self pertains to the ego, as the Truth does not require any help. The entity that one is seeking to help, the ego, is not actually in need of help but of dissolution. The only way to truly help the ego is by calling out its falseness. Vedanta explores the 'I' to dissolve it, whereas self-help extends and inflates the 'I' by providing it with validation. Therefore, the process of self-help is fundamentally opposed to the spiritual process. The spiritual process questions the self and its desires, while self-help accepts them and seeks to fulfill them. For this reason, the speaker suggests that the self-help genre should be more correctly called "self-gratification," as it pleases but does not truly help.