Acharya Prashant clarifies the relationship between the ego and conditioning. He explains that the ego is not created by conditioning; rather, conditioning provides the material or content for the ego. The existence of the ego is innate, arising from the moment it feels "I am." This creation is an illusory phenomenon. The world does not create the ego, but it fills the ego's empty basket with content through conditioning, telling it, "You are this, you are that." The world cannot make one feel "I am," but it can make one feel "I am something," such as great or inferior. To prove its false existence as truth, the ego seeks continuity, which is the worldly approximation of eternity. The ego must believe that the body and other natural phenomena are continuous things, not ever-changing processes. In reality, everything in nature, including the body, is a constantly changing process, not a static object. Sages have stated that only the Self is the true "thing" (vastu). Because the ego itself is a lie, it must uphold the lie of its possessions to maintain its identity. To maintain its own false identity, the ego projects falsehood onto the world. It cannot perceive the reality of nature because its senses are not pure. To protect the inner lie of its own existence, it plasters over the reality of the external world with its own interpretations. For instance, a man calls his wife a "queen" because he wants to see himself as a "king," thereby tying his identity to his possessions. Regarding the concept that the means and the end are one, Acharya Prashant explains that this refers to a state of profound and exclusive devotion to the goal. When this devotion is total, the goal itself becomes the path. He illustrates this with the analogy of being lost in a dark ocean and seeing a distant lighthouse. The lighthouse is both the destination (the end) and the guiding light that illuminates the path (the means). In such a state of exclusive love for the goal, nothing else is visible, and the means and the end merge.