Acharya Prashant explains that Vedanta is the culmination of the philosophy of the Vedas. Since the Vedas originated in India, Vedanta is a homegrown philosophy of the soil. This establishes the relationship between Vedanta and territorial India. However, if one considers India as a living, conscious entity, then Vedanta is the root from which all philosophical systems in India, in some way or another, draw their nutrition. All streams of thought, religions, and sects in India find their inspiration in Vedanta. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there can be no spirituality without Vedanta, as it addresses the simple and fundamental issue of understanding life and truth. Vedanta is not a belief system; it is extremely exploratory in nature and does not ask one to believe in anything or take anything for granted. It carries no dogmas, fables, or stories. Vedanta is not even experiential, because experience depends on the experiencer and is therefore subjective and flawed. Vedanta questions the experiencer, the entity that says "I," by asking, "Who am I?" The oldest Upanishads, which are the cornerstone of Vedanta, were composed around 4,000 years ago. It has been a continuous stream, with Upanishads being composed before the Buddha, during the Buddhist age, and even in the Christian era. The most recent Upanishads are no more than a thousand years old. The relationship between Vedanta and veganism is extremely deep, organic, and inseparable. When Vedanta asks, "Who am I?" one discovers they are the consciousness asking the question. This consciousness suffers because it is impure and contaminated. To be free from suffering, one must respect consciousness. If consciousness is to be respected, it must be respected in all its forms. One cannot deny that the consciousness of an animal is not very different from one's own; the animal suffers in much the same way. Therefore, if you respect yourself, you will respect other life forms. A person who is cruel to animals is likely to be inconsiderate and insensitive towards their loved ones as well. The more one lives in the physical, the more one destroys the physical, as seen in the current environmental crisis. To let the material world stay in a healthy shape, one must have a certain detachment from it, which can only come when one identifies not with the material, but with consciousness at the core.