Acharya Prashant explains that the world overpowers us in a thousand ways, and we agree to it. He gives the example of markets, which attract and attack us through an invasion of our senses. When you go to a shopping mall, it attacks you with glitter, sounds, and smells. Every shopkeeper knows how to attack because their business depends on dominating you and making a slave out of you; the more they can enslave you, the more they will sell. Even a roadside street food vendor knows how to attack with sounds and smells to entice you to eat. You don't even realize you have been attacked, and you agree to it. We agree to everything that makes us a slave, with hardly any resistance or rebellion. We agree to be disturbed, to be enslaved, to be conditioned. The speaker clarifies that this agreement is not truly ours, but a property of being asleep. Whosoever is asleep will agree to whatever is happening to them. When you are asleep, you cannot resist; you allow things to happen. Consequently, the one thing we disagree with is freedom. The man who agrees to enslavement will disagree with freedom. To illustrate this, he tells a story about a bird in a cage that constantly chirps for freedom. A young, rebellious man, hearing its cry, opens the cage door to free it. To his surprise, the bird bites his hand and refuses to come out. The determined young man eventually brings the bird out, and it flies away. However, when the man returns later, he finds the cage door still open, and the bird is back inside, eating the food provided by its master while still chanting for freedom. We deeply disagree with freedom because we agree with the cage, which provides security like food. Freedom means being on your own, fending for yourself, and facing the dangers of the open sky. The cage is safe, and the master provides food. You must agree with freedom because freedom is your real nature. You will never feel at ease without freedom, flight, realization, and intelligence.
