With Youth: The person can never be ego-free

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

Question (Q): How can one become an ego-free person?

Acharya Prashant (AP): A person can never be ego-free.

What do you mean by a person? A person is nothing but a mind occupied by the influences of others. The word person is a technical word. Please appreciate this.

Person means a mind occupied by the influence of others, and hence the word personality flows from the word person. It is the person that has a personality. How can a person ever be ego—free? What is the ego? Is it not an agglomeration of all that has come to you from outside? Your concept of yourself is supplied to you from outside, from somebody else, right?

Understand this: The person is full of ego.

A mind that is dominated by others is an egoistic mind; do you see this? And this is the mind of a person. So, a person means ego.

So, if the question is how can the person be ego-free. My answer is, never.

(Silence)

(In a subtle tone.) There is another way of being. There is another mind, not occupied by others. It is the mind of an individual. It receives all influences but it does not allow them to dominate. It has…