Acharya Prashant explains that the first thing to understand is that choice reigns supreme. We are not pots being prepared by a potter; no one can mold or forge us. Life is our own sovereign choice. If someone appears to hold authority over us, it is because we have surely vested them with that authority. He states that the ego is a trader; if you empower a person with such authority, that person is surely giving you something in return. Nobody can prepare you for anything that is against the law of freedom, especially when you are an adult. Irrespective of where one's childhood was spent or the conditions back then, when one lives in the present moment, there is no obligation to carry the load of the past. Certain things belong to certain areas and epochs, and that time has passed. There is no real need to carry the burden of the past. When he says 'need', he means something that you cannot dispense with. If this is happening to you, there is surely choice involved, and if it is your choice, it can be reversed. Acharya Prashant clarifies that Vedanta is very precise and scientific on this matter: you are free, that is your nature, that is who you are. Anything short of freedom is an affront to your very existence and is therefore undignified. You cannot be unfree. If you decide to be unfree and choose to have a lack of freedom, that decision will come with sorrow. Your very existence militates against the lack of freedom. You can barter away your freedom, but that decision will be accompanied by sorrow. He advises to observe what is called an 'emotional bond' or 'emotional training', suggesting much of it is just a residue of the body or fantastic storytelling, similar to Hindi movies. We tell ourselves stories and then believe in them without ever trying to experiment, verify, or examine them. We use words like 'life', 'love', 'beauty', 'East', and 'West' as if we are their originators and their definitions are clear to us, but the fact is nobody knows what these words mean. Yet, these words are the entire foundation of sentences and life. He challenges the story that parents love their kids, calling love a sacred word and stating that not even one in a million parents love their kids. A lot of nonsense passes in the name of beautiful words like respect, love, sacredness, and understanding. Just because somebody says something with great conviction does not mean they know what they are talking about.
