Acharya Prashant clarifies that the egoist mind is not truly free, as its resistance to external authority is often a result of internal conditioning. He explains that the ego itself is an external construct, and the person who refuses to surrender to a priest is often unknowingly enslaved by an ideology, tradition, or belief system. Both the overtly surrendered person and the egoist are dominated by external influences; the only difference is that the former is conscious of it, while the latter is not. True freedom comes from rebelling not just against the world, but also against the internal voices and identities that dictate one's actions. Acharya Prashant emphasizes that total rebellion is synonymous with total surrender. When one realizes that neither external figures nor one's own internal thoughts are authorities, only the truth remains. He warns against partial rebellion, which he describes as fake and self-destructive because it ignores internal conditioning. He advises that instead of replacing one conditioned thought with anotherāsuch as deciding to see God in a priestāone should simply stop once the falseness of all voices is recognized. In this state of stillness, spontaneous and divine action takes over, free from the constraints of preordained thought. Finally, he distinguishes between the ordinary mind and the faithful mind. While the ordinary mind relies on thought as its foundation and support, the faithful mind uses thought merely as an instrument. Faith involves acting without the support of thought, allowing for a state of being where one does not need to listen to any internal or external authority. This total rebellion against all forms of control leads to a state of surrender where the divine can operate through the individual.
