Acharya Prashant explains that anything arising from the mind's tendencies cannot bring those tendencies to an end. A new thought will not end old thoughts because the new thought is merely a furtherance of the old ones; it is actually old. When asked what to do, the speaker replies, "Not to do anything." He clarifies that "not to do" is the answer to "what to do." The speaker elaborates on this by explaining that whatever the mind does, it does as a conditioned machine. Yet, this machine seeks its fuel from the outside. He uses the analogy of a car, which is a conditioned machine with a preset design. A car is conditioned to run on the road and cannot fly. Every machine is conditioned. A car seeks its fuel from the outside; no car is self-sufficient in generating its own fuel. Similarly, no conditioned system is so self-sufficient that it can survive and thrive on its own. This fundamental thing has to be understood. Even a camera, which might seem self-sufficient in recording, is dependent on someone else for its operation and energy. There has to be someone behind it to control it and an external source for its electrical energy. Even though it is totally conditioned, there is still some kind of choice available. You are the one who can make that choice. You are not the one who goes by the automatic choices of the mind. You can choose to be swept away by the mind if you are unaware or inebriated, or you can be the one who can decide whether or not to give energy to the mind. For example, when a thought arises from an external stimulus due to the mind's inherent tendency to think, you are the one who provides fuel and energy to that thought, allowing it to become a fixation. At the moment you are providing that energy, there is a faint choice available to you. When you see that the thought has been provoked by an external agent, you realize there is no need to give any more energy to it. You are not controlling the mind; you are just cutting off the supply of its fuel. You are the one who supplies energy to the mind.
