Vipul Agarwal, Delhi, 19 May 2026
All of us are quite aware of the role we play in this world. We are a father, mother, son, daughter, employee, student, teacher, boss, friend, and so on. But do we remember that we are somebody else behind these identities? Today, while sitting in meditation, I realised that these roles carry so much weight on our soul that even when we close our eyes to begin the inner journey, the journey of “who am I?”, these roles continue to play in our minds. The thoughts about the future, office, relationships, etc., do not leave us.
Then what is the way out? How do we get to see the reality beyond these roles? While interacting with each other in this world, we obviously have to stick to these roles. When we interact in society, we have to remember these roles. While doing our work in the office, we can’t suddenly say, “I will not treat my boss as a boss because that’s just a role.” Since we play these roles day in and day out, we become confined to them. Our existence seems to be confined to these roles. However, if we practice a little awareness in the morning and evening, while playing these roles during the day, we have that faint awareness that we are just playing the roles, and actually, we are much beyond these roles.
That faint awareness helps us. It brings down the intensity of the reactions. When adverse situations arise, and things don’t happen the way we want, we don’t feel disturbed. When favourable situations arise, we do not go mad with happiness. As the intensity of the reactions diminishes, we spend less time on those emotions and have more space to remain aware of our true nature. We play the role assigned to us during the day while remaining aware of our true nature. Slowly, this awareness increases, and we remain calm amidst the biggest of crises.
There is no painkiller for relaxation. There is no quick fix. I feel that every moment matters. It is all decided by our awareness in each moment. The more moments of awareness during the day; the more aware our life as a whole is. The moment one sees this, why would one waste even a single moment? The moment one realises the cost of unawareness, one will not waste a moment. However, the old habit patterns will reemerge and take over our attention again. But then that faint awareness will come back. This process will continue until the storehouse of old habit patterns is empty, and in that emptiness, we see reality as clear as crystal.
