I have long been a seeker of truth—first glimpsing it in the silent radiance of the sun, the moon, and the stars in my childhood. In time, I sought it in the world of forms, in people and places, and eventually turned inward, toward the depths of my own being. I have made countless mistakes, as they are called, and at times I have also been correct; yet both have served as passing movements in the unfolding of understanding. From the many experiments I pursued as a lover of science and astronomy in my early years, to offering my entire life as an experiment in the search for the eternal, I have remained, at my core, an experimenter.

My mind has been analytical, observant, and inclined toward order, even amidst the seeming disorder of life. And yet, in this journey, I have failed repeatedly—socially, personally, morally, financially, and professionally. To an ordinary observer, my life may appear as that of a madman. But such judgments belong to the surface of things, to the realm of names and forms (nāma-rūpa), and not to the deeper current that moves unseen.

For something within me—call it the inner witness, the silent awareness—continued this search regardless of consequence. It persisted through loss, through the dissolution of relationships and identities, even when the ground beneath my existence seemed to vanish, and all that I had taken to be “myself” fell away. In moments when everything descended into chaos, and even the sense of self was obscured, that inner movement did not cease.

Then it became evident: within me burns an eternal fire—not of destruction alone, but of revelation. In its intensity, all that I had identified with—thoughts, emotions, memories, the body, ambitions, and the constructed self—has been offered and consumed. This fire has turned my life inside out, not as an act of loss, but as a return to what neither arises nor passes away. It reveals that nothing in the field of experience endures; all conditioned things are impermanent (anicca), and all that can be grasped is destined to dissolve.

What remains is not an object to be attained, but the very ground of being itself. I now see that I am not the transient forms I once believed myself to be, but that which is aware of them—the unchanging witness, the silent presence. In Vedantic understanding, this is the Self (Ātman), not separate from the Absolute (Brahman); in the Buddhist view, it is the cessation of clinging to any fixed self, revealing the emptiness (śūnyatā) of all phenomena. What I once sought as truth stands revealed as what I have always been.

- Jitendra V. Kadam