Life often feels like a stage on which I am endlessly shifting roles. When I travel for work and step into a workshop or meeting, I become the professional self—engaged, focused, fully absorbed in tasks, conversations, and responsibilities. In that moment, it feels as though this is the truest version of me, the role that defines who I am. Yet when I return home, that role dissolves, and I find myself fully immersed in another: father, the man of the house. Now that feels like the central truth, and everything else—the work, the meetings, the interactions—becomes secondary, merely supporting parts in the drama of being father.

And again, when I sit with my parents, the father in me steps aside, and I become the son. In that space, the role of son feels more authentic than any other, as though it is the deepest identity I could ever hold. The others—father, professional, friend—recede to the margins, taking on the look of side stories.

When I live in a foreign land, I carry yet another identity. I become the child of my homeland, the citizen, the patriot. Distance makes my bond to my roots stronger. I identify with my nation, my birthplace, and I carry a deep sense of belonging. The role of patriot feels so natural, so true, that for a while it seems to eclipse all else.

And when I stand inside a temple, head bowed, palms joined, heart seeking protection and blessings, I step fully into the role of devotee. I become the seeker, the child looking up at the Lord. In those moments of devotion, everything else fades—father, son, patriot, professional—and the role of devotee feels absolute.

So many roles, and each one feels utterly real in the moment. When I am in one, it seems to be the most authentic. When I shift to another, it claims the same authority. This raises a question I cannot easily put aside: if every role feels real, then which one is the real me? Or is it possible that there is no single, final role—that all of them are true in their time, and yet none of them alone defines me?

Sometimes I wonder if the “self” we seek is not a fixed entity at all. Perhaps the self is not hidden behind the roles but expressed through the fluidity of moving between them. Perhaps being human is not about finding a singular identity but about fully inhabiting each role when it arises, and then letting it go when another calls.

And yet, there is something deeper I cannot deny. When I shift from father to son, from professional to patriot, from devotee to friend, something in me remains unchanged. There is a witness, a conscious awareness, that notices the roles as they come and go. It does not belong to the father or the son. It does not rise when I am the professional and fall when I am the devotee. It simply watches. Silent, steady, unpossessed.

Could this awareness be the only constant? The roles rise and fall like waves, each with its urgency, each with its feeling of reality. But the awareness feels like the ocean beneath them—quiet, vast, and untouched. If I forget the ocean, the waves overwhelm me, and I cling to each role as if it is the whole of me. But when I remember the ocean, the waves no longer frighten. They are real, yes, but they are not final.

This thought becomes sharper when I consider death. What happens when the final role comes to an end—when the body weakens, when the stage grows dark? Will I still cling to being father, son, citizen, devotee? Or will all of those identities slip away, leaving only that bare awareness, the primordial consciousness that has always been here? And then comes the question that pierces deepest of all: do we leave the witness, or does the witness leave us?

If the witness is awareness itself, it seems inseparable. It has been present through every role, every shift, every moment of becoming. How then could we leave it? And yet, in the silence of death, it feels possible that even awareness might dissolve. Or perhaps it is the other way around—perhaps the roles fall away, but the witness remains untouched, waiting in stillness as the final truth.

The challenge is: how do we speak of such things? Our language is woven from the fabric of roles. We talk as fathers about our children, as professionals about our work, as citizens about our country, as devotees about our faith. But to speak of pure awareness—the being that is beyond roles—is nearly impossible. Perhaps it cannot be captured in words. Perhaps it can only be lived.

Maybe the truest communication happens not through speech but through presence. When someone lives anchored in awareness, it shows. There is a calmness, a compassion, a freedom in how they move through roles. They can be father without being bound by fear, son without being trapped by duty, devotee without losing themselves in ritual, professional without being swallowed by ambition. They live the roles deeply but lightly, knowing they are expressions, not prisons.

And so the paradox remains. Every role is real in its moment, yet none is the whole truth. To live is to honor the roles—father, son, friend, patriot, devotee—but to remember always the silent witness that underlies them. To die is perhaps to let go of the roles altogether and rest fully in that witness.

So, who are we? Are we the roles we play, or the awareness behind them? And finally, when the curtain falls, do we leave the witness—or does the witness leave us? Perhaps being human is precisely this mystery—the dance between masks and essence, between performance and presence, between the ever-shifting roles we embody and the consciousness that never shifts at all.