Multiple Ways I’ve Been Wrong About Myself

So many of my recent reflections — whether it was a flare-up during a travel conversation, a passing judgment, or a sandwich on a sunny bench — have all centered around the same thing: this persistent sense of me.

The ego reactions, the search for meaning, the small wins and subtle identifications… almost all of it orbits the body and mind. That’s the assumed center — the lens through which everything else is seen.

And yet, I ought to know better. I’ve heard this teaching. I’ve even felt its truth.

Advaita Vedanta doesn’t offer comfort; it offers clarity.

It begins by challenging that very center.

It says: you are not the body. You are not the mind.

But it doesn’t start with a grand definition of who you really are.

It begins with something simpler:

You already know you exist. That’s not in doubt.

Vedanta calls that unchanging, always-present “you” the Self. But it doesn’t ask you to take that on faith.

It just asks:

What part of this “I” has actually stayed the same through everything?

From there, the inquiry unfolds:

• The body? It’s changed endlessly — from infancy to adulthood.

• The mind? Beliefs, preferences, memories — all shifting.

And if something is constantly changing, and something else isn’t — can they really be the same?

Vedanta gives us tools to examine this — not as dry theory, but as lived x-rays.

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🔍 Two That Landed Deep

A Simple Shift in Seeing

(Dṛg–Dṛśya Viveka)

“Everything I’m caught up in… I can see it.

So I can’t be it.”

The thoughts? Seen.

The tension in the chest? Felt.

The worry about being judged? Noticed.

That which is seen is not the seer.

This is the insight of Drig-Drishya Viveka — the discrimination between the observer and the observed.

In simple terms: if I can notice it, it’s not me.

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Looking Across the Day (and Night)

(Avasthā-Traya Viveka)

I wake — and experience the world through body and mind.

I dream — body drops away, mind creates vivid stories.

I sleep deeply — no body, no thoughts… yet something remains, because I wake up saying: “I slept well.”

That thread running through all three states — that’s what Vedanta is pointing to.

What is always present, even when the body or mind isn’t, must be what I truly am.

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🧠 A Quiet but Precise Logic

(Anvaya–Vyatireka)

Vedanta applies a quiet kind of logic — not cold, but clear.

It asks:

• What remains in all experiences?

• What disappears sometimes?

• And what does that say about who I am?

This is the logic of presence and absence — Anvaya–Vyatireka:

• The body is absent in dreams.

• The mind is absent in deep sleep.

• But I — the awareness — am never absent.

So what I am… is not the changing parts.

I am the one that remains — the unchanging witness.

And that’s the real reason this inquiry matters:

The problem isn’t just that things change.

It’s that everything that changes also disappears.

And deep down, we long for what doesn’t.

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🪞 Bringing It Back to Daily Life

Still, what use is all this if it stays as a good idea?

The invitation is to bring it back — into ego-flareups, anxious moments, even joy.

To live from the one who sees, not the one who reacts.

These lenses aren’t for belief.

They’re subtle mirrors — tools for inquiry.

And in the weeks ahead, I’ll be living with each of them more closely — not in a formal way, but through the quiet noticing that these lenses are already active, whether I remember them or not.

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📚 For Those Who Want to Go Deeper

These five lenses come from classical Advaita texts — not to explain the Self, but to dismantle what we mistake for it.

Of these, the Three States of Experience, Seer–Seen, and the Presence–Absence logic are especially direct and testable. If you’re curious, start there:

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Three States (Avasthā-Traya Viveka)

• Source Texts:

• Tattvabodha by Swami Tejomayananda

• Tattva-viveka Prakriyas in Vedanta

• Talk:

• Mandukya Upanishad with Swami Sarvapriyananda (YouTube)

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Seer–Seen (Dṛg–Dṛśya Viveka)

• Books:

• Drig Drishya Viveka: A Self-Inquiry Text — Swami Tejomayananda

• Drg Drsya Viveka — Swami Paramarthananda