India, Nov. 11 -- A national junior powerlifting champion asks whether her defiance of social convention is really freedom. A senior police officer struggles to reconcile institutional obligation with his own judgment. An animal-welfare advocate asks by what authority humans place themselves above other creatures. Their lives could hardly be more different. Yet on October 25 they sat in the same room, listening to one man speak about the self, the ego and the meaning of freedom.

The gathering was an offline session on Vedanta led by Acharya Prashant. People had travelled from Haryana, Odisha, Pune and Delhi. Some came from modest households, others from affluent ones. There were professionals, sportspersons, women managing domestic respo...