Acharya Prashant explains that the search for excellence in any field, such as science or technology, involves the use of thought. He states that India was extremely fortunate to have discovered something beyond thought. This discovery, made by a select few sages, was that thought is not the highest thing and that there is a truth beyond human action and imagination. This ultimate truth could only be surrendered to, not verified or examined. When this knowledge was compassionately relayed to the masses, they received the "final solution" prematurely, leading them to believe there was no need to aspire anymore. Ambition and attempts to rise higher began to seem futile. In contrast, the West had questions it sought to settle through thought. Western science emerged from philosophy, and because they never reached a final, absolute answer, they continued to progress through inquiry. Acharya Prashant notes that the settled and verified part of material philosophy is what is called science. India, however, received the final solution—that the world and the thinker are ultimately unreal—too early. This led to a culture that does not rely on thought but on belief, effectively bypassing the process of thought. Instead of following the sages' path of using the mind to its fullest extent to reach its boundary, Indians tried to emulate the end result by dropping the mind altogether. He describes three levels of consciousness: the savage (who doesn't use the mind), the simpleton (the commoner), and the sage (who has gone beyond the mind). He posits that in the attempt to become the sage, it is easy to become the savage, which is what has happened to Indians. This manifests as a culture of superstition, copying, and worshipping leaders without critical analysis. The teaching to stay clear of both the body and mind has led to physical neglect, like malnutrition, and intellectual stagnation. Thus, India's greatest fortune, its profound spiritual discovery, became its misfortune because the process was ignored in favor of emulating the result.