Soliloquy Of I

By Aakarsh Sharma

The air can be a mirror and oracle at once similarly my words woven from breath , both reflect and declare . Reflection is not vanity when it reveals structure . When I look inward and find patterns , I do not discover a distant magistrate doling verdicts ; The Self the “I” is not a distant ruler . It is depth whose surface keeps announcing separateness in ignorance . My claim is simple and contentious . Where many spiritual traditions counsel the erosion of self , I propose its disciplined expansion . An enlargement of the unit I until it recognizes itself everywhere , until this I gains ability to see everyone in oneself and oneself in everyone . This is not self aggrandizement ; it is the courage to accept responsibility for the wholeness we already are .

Before this becomes a slogan , let us name a danger plainly . The rhetorical move that elevates the self into totalizing rule is real and urgent . Men forge gods from fear . Altars cemented with obedience , doctrines that demand reverence in exchange for consolidation . From that economy of dependence springs tyranny . The weak solicit protection from imagined powers ; the powerful seek ever higher legitimators . Spiritual language is sometimes hijacked to legitimate domination . That is not the expansion I propose . True enlargement of I dissolves the very logic that produces domination . As per the concept purported , if the other is not foreign but yourself elsewhere , coercion becomes metaphysically absurd .

To see why expansion , rather than annihilation , is necessary , consider a newborn’s gaze which is uncalculated , spontaneous and luminously without any social engineering . This primal consciousness is not void but a full presence which is receptive , curious and most prominently alive . Social machinery subsequently impresses itself upon that openness through language , roles , duties and comparison . Morality , in its brittle form , becomes an external code stamped on a soft heart . But when the I expands to include the other , morality ceases to be a coercion and transforms into spontaneous harmony . Tenderness doesn’t require policing ; it flows when the boundary between me and you is known to be porous .

The Upanishad’s principle of ‘Neti Neti’ remains a necessary alchemical operation . Negation strips illusions ; it is a useful scalpel . But when negation becomes extermination , when instruction to abandon the ego is used as a weapon against existence , avoiding slips into guise of purity . Fear of responsibility , pain and consequences may hide behind the calls to annihilate the self . That retreat is not bravery; it is evasion . The method purported here however differs from the one stated . Instead of extinguishing the I , this methods call for expansion of it until the limits of self and the world blur and the wave remembers it is the ocean itself it was distinguishing itself from .

The question arises , what then is this expansion ? 

It is not narcissism in rhetoric jacket . It is a disciplined , ethical exercise of inclusion . It is an aperture gradually widened through sustained attention and rigorous practice . Imagine a mirror polished until it reflects not only your face but the room behind you , then the street , then the sky . Polishing the I need not to magnify petty desires ; it can reveal the context in which desire arises and thereby loosen its grip . Expansion , practiced honestly , exposes egoic patterns so they can be rearranged into sympathy; impulse is tampered by comprehension , and action becomes dance .

‘Dance’ is the verb of utmost importance here . Existence is choreography in which tempo shifts , motifs recur , a misstep happens , music changes . To dance is not to avoid consequences; it is to respond with grace , improvisation , and rigor . When the I recognizes itself as a whole , actions ceases to be duty shackled to fear of results ; it becomes movement for sake of movement . It becomes engagement without entanglement .

This is not to bemused with irresponsibility , as it is on the contrary a refined agency in which one acts fully , is accountable to consequences , yet undominated by attachment to outcomes . The dancer still bears responsibility ; he simply moves from a center that knows how every step affects the floor .

Ethics , under the view , is transfigured . Justice sheds the bluntness of vengeance and acquires the clarity of balance . Compassion is not performative sentiment but precise responsiveness which is fierce when needed , patient when appropriated . The moral life becomes less about tallying rights and more about attending an aesthetic of conduct where each gesture is judged by how it preserves or restores harmony . This is not sentimental utopianism . It is practical in the sense that when social actors treat others as extension of themselves , reciprocity becomes real and institutions breathe more humanly .

I do not claim novelty for every impulse here; there is a philosophical ancestry to these ideas. The nondual intimations of the Upanishads, the Stoic demand for inner sovereignty, Heraclitus’s flux, even Nietzsche’s exhortation to create values. My contribution is synthetic: a posture that holds negation and affirmation in tandem. Let the scalpel of neti neti do its work; let the final operation be expansion, a filling of the cleaned space with an outward-reaching identity that is both metaphysical and ethical.

Skeptics will object. Some will say that enlarging the I privileges subjectivity and risks spiritual vanity. Others will warn that talk of an expanded self reproduces disengagement in the name of unity. These criticisms deserve a sharp reply. 

First, genuine expansion demands rigorous accountability , it is not an abstract claim but a lived practice subject to public scrutiny. 

Second, expansion by definition reaches outward; the horizon of care enlarges rather than contracts. To demonstrate the danger and the remedy, consider a concrete abuse: charismatic leaders who preach “higher self” while monopolizing power. Their “expansion” is a delusion. They expand their claim to authority, not their empathy. The remedy is institutional and personal that is practices that cultivate empathy, checks on power, dialogues that expose intention. True expansion shrinks the space for such delusion.

This path is practical and particular. It begins with small acts like listening without interruption, acknowledging harm honestly, repenting where appropriate, and celebrating others’ flourishing as if it were one’s own. It continues through disciplines that train attention: reflective solitude, committed dialogue, disciplined work, and the arts dance most of all. The artist trains body and imagination to respond faithfully to rhythm; the philosopher trains mind to respond to contradiction without flinching. Both are necessary if the I is to widen within a life that remains responsible.

I speak not to exalt a private throne but to issue an invitation. Surrender is not abdication; it is yielding to a more extensive identity. The drop returns to the sea not by becoming less but by acknowledging it was never merely a drop. Remembrance dissolves invented separation. 

In that remembrance, action becomes dance, and the dance is the mode of living honestly in a fractured world.

If the proposition holds even partially, it alters the grammar of worship, justice, and interpersonal life. Reverence becomes recognition; law becomes choreography; power becomes stewardship. I offer this as a working theory , a disciplined experiment in living rather than a final dogma.

To close, let this be both proposition and prayer: expand the I until it can hold all sorrow and all joy, until it recognizes itself in the smallest ant and the furthest star. Then move. Dance.

By Aakarsh Sharma