Acharya Prashant explains that Vedanta is concerned with our suffering, clarifying that it is the mind, not the body, that suffers. While the body can be hurt, wounded, diseased, or aged, it is merely an object in the field of suffering and never the experiencer. The mind is the subject that suffers, for instance, when the body is in pain. However, this suffering is not a compulsion; the mind has a choice whether to suffer or to realize. This choice involves the mind's discretion or indiscretion in interpreting the body's condition. Since Vedanta's purpose is to end suffering, its focus is on the mind. The aim is to bring discretion to the mind so it does not suffer. The speaker states that the very existence of the mind, as a product of conditioned consciousness, is suffering. It is more accurate to say the mind *is* suffering, rather than the mind suffers. If the mind exists, it will suffer. Therefore, to end suffering, the mind as we know it must be brought to an end. This familiar, routine, pattern-based life must end for suffering to end. The life of the mind exists within the realm of time, characterized by beginnings and endings, or birth and death. Therefore, the mind lives in perpetual death, constantly haunted by the specter of its own ending. When the mind comes to an end, it goes beyond death. The death of the mind is, in fact, the death of death itself. This ending of the mind and its suffering is what can be called the mind's liberation into Brahman. Vedanta's central inquiry, "Who are you? Who is the sufferer?", is crucial because to remove suffering, one must first know the identity of the suffering entity.
