Acharya Prashant explains that freedom from desire means liberation from the external forces that grip and control us. He points out that what people typically call their own desires are actually implanted by the body or the world, rather than being original or native to the individual. Chasing these external desires is compared to drinking water when a neighbor is thirsty; it provides no real salvation because it does not address one's actual needs. He emphasizes that without self-knowledge, people waste their lives chasing miscellaneous, borrowed desires. The speaker defines the one central, right desire as the state of asking for nothing, expecting nothing, and depending on nothing. This state of non-dependence is identified as true liberation, which he aligns with the teachings of Adi Shankaracharya, the Buddha, and the Upanishads. Specifically, he references the Niralamba Upanishad to illustrate the concept of being 'not dependent' on anything as the essence of spiritual freedom.