What is meant by ‘looking within’?

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Acharya Prashant: Looking inwards does not mean looking in any particular inward direction. All perception is subject-object duality. The subject is the looker, thinker. He is always ‘looking’ at the world, ‘perceiving’ shapes and forms, and ‘thinking’ about things and time. The subject ‘thinks’ that the things and forms and time are real. He thinks that the world of objects has an independent existence without him.

We all imagine, don’t we, that the world will exist even if we are not there? And our everyday experience seems to support this belief (I leave the water on the boiler, and when I come back, the water has boiled). So, the subject has a deep belief that the world has an ‘objective’ reality. He thinks that there is a world and he is ‘in’ that world. He thinks that the world is made up of 1000 things, which includes him. So, the world is 999 things plus the subject. That is the mental model of the subject.

This mental model is classically called ‘looking outwards’.

This model is the model of materialism and death. Because I exist as just a thing in the universe, and the universe does not depend on me, so I will always be afraid of my deletion from the universe.