A Takeaway for 2025: Can You See Your Self-Obsession?
Dear Upbuild Community,
I hope your year has been fulfilling and has taught you something of how you want to go into the next year. It’s been very inspiring for us at Upbuild with our first team retreat that we held at sacred places in India, the launch of our Enneagram podcast, the submission of our Enneagram manuscript, and the surreal release of my wife’s exceptional nonfiction spiritual book Magic on Mira Road: Stories from the Bhaktivedanta Hospital, among other great blessings too numerous to count. Still, each year is always fraught with challenges that keep me reflecting and trying to improve my approach to this life, my service to all the people in it, and my relationship with myself.
Every year, I write a takeaway from the last 12 months, and share it with you. This year, what was most alive for me was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the same thing that’s been alive in me for several years. Namely — my sense of overwhelm. I experience the responsibility, demands, and pressures of life to be consistently overwhelming without respite. Time management and prioritization are my consistent struggles. When my guru, Sacinandana Swami, evaluated my situation some years ago on his visit to New York, he assessed my responsibilities and my life in general, and told me not to change anything — that he agreed with my prioritization of things. That was a very powerful affirmation for me. And yet, the anxiety remained — how do I lose the constant sense of overwhelm? What am I doing wrong and what can I fix?
That said, my heart also carries the hunger to live more aligned with who I really am, which is beyond the stresses of this life. I am a soul transcendent of this world and constantly connected to eternity in utter freedom. And so are you. When will we realize this in full? This realization would absolutely take away this sense of overwhelm, and I want it — now!
On that visit in New York, Sacinandana Swami gave me the assurance I needed, but he also provoked me. As I have shared in the past, he told me that I need a “rewiring” to experience the spiritual reality completely. I’ve had glimpses of that spiritual reality that have shaped me, stirring me to do what I do today, but those glimpses leave me longing for more. That is also their greatest gift. And that is what leads to the potential rewiring. We enter a rewiring process where we begin to long for who we really are so intensely that soon we can’t live any other way anymore.
What does it take to get to this point of being rewired? It’s all dependent on seeing the current wiring. And that is unfortunately not a pretty picture. It’s one where we put ourselves before others. Does anybody like a selfish person? When you use that adjective to describe someone, it makes the face curl, no? And to think of ourselves that way is the most mortifying. Therefore, we do anything to avoid this association. We even do all kinds of things to convince ourselves we are really giving and not at all selfish. But what’s the truth? Do we have the courage to answer that question?
As I reflect on my own ego through this year, and specifically this sense of overwhelm that I struggle with, I realize that everything points back to me. My experience. My challenges. My suffering. My hopes. My dreams. I perpetually think about my constraints, my difficulties, my inabilities, my wishes to be better for others, and the lack of readily perceptible light at the end of the tunnel to transcend this human condition.
For the last nearly 20 years, I’ve been trying to purify my selfish desires and be as honest, authentic, and service-oriented as I can. My saving grace is that due to some incredible spiritual guidance, I have become obsessed with becoming the real self, filled only with the desire to serve, free from the coverings of the ego. For me, and for all of us, our default obsession with ourselves must be channeled toward obsession with becoming the real self.
Because of my spiritual guides and training, I refuse to suppress or avoid the discomfort that comes with seeing my limitations. I confront my inner experience as compassionately as I know how for the sake of serving others. And because of that, even the suffering here is a gift. Does it feel like that regularly? Absolutely not! I won’t sugarcoat it. The sense of purpose and progress moves me like anything, but it’s not glamorous! And I’m not after the glamor anymore, thankfully. What I’m after is what will help me rise to the next level on the path to the self.
At Upbuild, our work is dedicated to recognizing that the ego identity of who we think we should be in this world is running the show and covering who we actually are — the soul. If we don’t see the covering, there’s no chance at removing it. So we have to get super-comfortable with what’s super-uncomfortable — seeing our egos! Then we have to further peel its layers and ultimately arrive at the real self — free from these coverings. That’s the true motivating force behind this work.
The Bhagavad-Gita, the sacred text on which our mission centers, teaches us that when we are not conscious of the coverings of our real selves, we harbor limitless desires that drive our self-obsessed ego behavior and lead us away from the self, making everyone else the object to fulfill our desires. If it sounds bleak, it’s because it is. When we are not individually and collectively trying to become the real self, we get a world that looks like the current one of lust, greed, corruption, frustration, anger, injustice, violence, and devastation. We all contribute to this awful picture of objectification according to our degree of ego identification. But unless we’re one of the rare souls dedicated to the path of spiritual awakening, we’re all steeped in the ego charade, woefully far away from the true self. The question is: Can you see it?
If you can see it, you can get out of it. If you can’t, you cannot. And pointing fingers at the egos of others won’t help you get free from your own. We have to see our personal ego prison to break out of it. Not someone else’s.
I’ve become so tired of my own self-obsession. Being the center of my world. Hoping and fearing automatedly. The only way out is turning that self-obsession toward the real self. Then something remarkable takes place: We become shelters of affection that require an object so we can happily benefit others by our selfless service. Rather than objectifying the objects of love, we elevate them. We become servants of all living beings as part of the spiritual reality.
So what’s my realization and next step in this vein? I want to harbor my desires in a new way. I want to be more thoughtful about the object of those desires. I pray with all my heart to loosen my grip on the worries about my limitations, the metaphorical and physical headaches that plague me, what will happen, how it will all work, how I’ll be able to live up to my commitments, whether it will be enough, how much more toll on me it will take, and so on. This doesn’t come overnight, obviously. But, the Bhagavad-Gita teaches us that our anxieties and selfish desires can be redirected. Rewired. To meditate not on the objects of my material happiness but the objects of my affectionate service.
Of course, introspection is vital — I have to think about how I can be my best. And I won’t deny or avoid the pains, fears, and anxieties that come with that. But I do hereby dedicate myself afresh to greater attention on the object of my service, which is all of you, and less my own experience that follows me, good, bad, or ugly. Instead of fixating on how I’m doing and all the trials and tribulations in my service, my intention is to place my attention even more on the service itself and object of service — the people I’m privileged to have in my care — as most important. I will unrelentingly remind myself to see my self-obsession and change its direction. To focus on the service of the other, which makes whatever I must go through worth it and only for my much-needed growth.
This naturally follows up and builds on my first ever ‘takeaway’ for the year back in 2018: Creating Space Between Ourselves and Our Experiences. Let it be clear that I will continue seeking empathy and processing my experiences, but I am not them. And they are not me. Nor am I so important that I wish to let them occupy me as they do currently and drag me around this life. Instead, I aim to pull back in the heat of the moment as well as overarchingly through the overwhelm to see more clearly the intrinsic value of the service and the served, whatever happens. There is so much transcendent grace that comes from following such sacred teachings and serving out of genuine care. That is where I rest my heart and mind amidst the restless current of life.
Constrained and limited as I am, having to always plan and live strategically the best I can, I hope now to trust more that my sincere desire to serve brings the invisible grace of my teachers, who are pushing me progressively toward the real self. So for 2026, it’s not about me and all the worries that inevitably come with me. I invite you to join me in this totally liberating approach. And it all hinges on this one question: Can you see your self-obsession?