Acharya Prashant explains that someone with a foundation in Vedanta will accept the teachings of the Buddha just as a fish takes to water. To understand the Buddha's words, the best name to refer to is Nagarjuna. So much respect was given to Nagarjuna that many who came after Adi Shankaracharya said that Shankaracharya had simply adopted Nagarjuna's ideas, even calling him a "crypto-Buddhist" or a "Buddhist in disguise." With full responsibility, the speaker states that if religion has any future, its name is Advaita Vedanta or Shunyavada (the doctrine of emptiness); there is no other future for religion. To embark on the journey of Truth, it is impossible not to pass through the Buddha. The principles of Vedanta emerge with the utmost clarity in the philosophy of Mahatma Buddha, perhaps more than anywhere else. The speaker reiterates that Vedanta is the key to understanding all the world's scriptures, but this key can become ineffective if it rusts. The work of removing this rust was done by the Buddhists. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that if someone does not understand or appreciate the Buddha's philosophy, they cannot be a Vedantin. We have been with the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita for a long time, and now we will enjoy the company of the Buddha. To understand the Buddha's words, the speaker has chosen a text by Nagarjuna. Instead of the more famous *Mulamadhyamakakarika*, he has chosen the *Shunyata Saptati* (Seventy Verses on Emptiness) for practical reasons, as the former is very long and uses complex Buddhist terminology. Nagarjuna was a polymath—a chemist, an astronomer, and a psychologist (in the context of Tantra). His understanding of the external world informed his spiritual philosophy. He saw that everything, from atoms to planets, follows predetermined laws; there is action, but no doer. This is the Shunyavada of Buddhist philosophy. He explains the three types of emptiness: *Svabhava Shunyata* (emptiness of self-nature), *Vastu Shunyata* (emptiness of things), and *Nirvana Shunyata* (emptiness of Nirvana). This is similar to the Vedantic concept of *Anatma* (no-self) and *Avidya* (ignorance), where believing you have a self of your own is ignorance. Acharya Prashant compares the two levels of truth in Nagarjuna's philosophy—the ultimate truth (*Paramarthika Satya*) and the conventional/transactional truth (*Samvriti Satya*)—with Adi Shankaracharya's three levels of truth: illusory (*Pratibhasika*), transactional (*Vyavaharika*), and ultimate (*Paramarthika*). He notes the similarity in the concepts of transactional and ultimate truth between the two masters. He concludes by explaining that our suffering arises because we start from a place of suffering. The desire for happiness, which originates from the ego's feeling of incompleteness, only leads to more suffering. The starting point determines the outcome; if you start from the center of suffering, you will only get more of it.