Acharya Prashant explains that we all face problems and are fond of attributing a reason to every problem. He provides several examples of common problems and the reasons people typically assign to them. For instance, in a relationship, one might say, "The other person is not understanding me." If a medical report shows a heart problem, the reason might be a "horrid schedule." For a bad appraisal at work, one might claim, "This place is not for me," or "The boss does not really understand me." Similarly, with family tensions, reasons like "They don't understand me," "I have my own human limits," or "Why should I conform to their patterns and expectations?" are common. The speaker points out that while everyone is beset with challenges that are called problems, we all claim to have diagnosed our own issues. We become self-appointed experts, specialists, and consultants for our own problems, acting as both the sufferer and the doctor. We believe we are the one person who understands the anatomy of our problem. However, the speaker introduces the perspective of Jiddu Krishnamurti, who busts this myth. Krishnamurti asserts that if a problem exists, it is precisely because you do not know its real cause. All the reasons you assign to it are false, because if you had truly known the reason, the problem would not have existed in the first place. The real problem, therefore, is the inability to know what is truly happening. A problem is not an unfavorable external situation but is simply the inability to know the happening. A life situation, which is just like any other situation, becomes a scary and overbearing problem only because we do not know what the situation is. The speaker illustrates this with an example of having a memory lapse while driving or even while sitting still; the external situation might be perfectly normal, but it becomes horrible because you cannot make sense of it. This inability to know what's going on is the life problem. In conclusion, any problem, without exception, exists because you do not know what is happening. Had you known, the problem would be gone. The problem disappears the moment it is diagnosed correctly. As the speaker states, "When the disease is unreal, the diagnosis is the cure." All you need is the correct diagnosis, which comes from knowing what is truly happening.
