Seeing Through the Lens of Vedanta
NEW Vedanta in Plain English, Book 1: Who Am I, Really. Now available in paperback and eBook
VEDANTA IN PLAIN ENGLISH SERIES
Book 1: Who Am I, Really?
by Daniel McKenzie
Who Am I, Really? invites readers into the heart of self-inquiry. Drawing from the non-dual wisdom of Vedanta, it examines what remains when thoughts, body, and identity are set aside. Rather than offering beliefs, it points the reader to direct recognition of awareness itself — the changeless presence behind every experience. Clear, rational, and timeless, this book reveals how freedom lies not in becoming something new, but in understanding what you already are.
The 5-part series "Vedanta in Plain English" was created to make the ancient insights of Vedanta accessible in clear, everyday language. These books are written for readers who are curious about consciousness but prefer clarity to mysticism. Each volume explores one facet of inquiry, using observation, psychology, and logic to uncover insights that the ancient texts reached by other means.
The following is from Book 1, "Who Am I, Really" now available in paperback and eBook.
CHAPTER 1
WHY WE'RE CONFUSED
It’s not your fault. It’s been hidden from you this whole time.
You wake up and reach for the phone before your eyes have fully opened. The day begins in other people’s lives — messages, headlines, photos, alerts. By the time you’ve finished scrolling, your own life feels like something happening off-screen. You call it staying informed, but really you’re being programmed. It’s not malicious, it’s mechanical.
And the strangest part is, you don’t even know what’s missing, or why. You move from day to day chasing what you like and dodging what you don’t, never stopping to ask what the entire system is running on top of. The job, the relationships, the screen time, the ambitions. Everything hums along on invisible software you’ve never examined.
You assume you’re the one in control, steering through life, but really you’re being run by an algorithm you didn’t write. And that algorithm has one simple line of code: Seek pleasure, avoid pain.
The program shows up everywhere: in the urge to check notifications, in the quiet panic of being left out, in the endless pursuit of “better.”
We chase success because failure hurts.
We chase love because loneliness burns.
We chase peace because our own minds are noisy.
The Auto-Pilot Life
The code works well enough to keep the species alive, but not to keep you sane.
It drives the whole machine: scrolling for dopamine, working for recognition, buying for comfort, arguing for validation — refresh, repeat, sleep, and start again. We call it living. It’s really reacting.
Most people never notice, because the system rewards busyness and punishes silence. The moment you stop running, you feel the weight of everything you’ve been outrunning. So you start running again.
Eventually, the body tires and the mind grows suspicious. You begin to notice that every high collapses into a low, every victory breeds the next pursuit. The chase keeps you busy, but not fulfilled. It’s at that moment — when effort itself feels empty — that the real search begins.
No one told you there’s an alternative. That’s the secret Vedanta begins with — not a promise of heaven, but the revelation that you’ve confused the mechanism for yourself.
The Hidden Mechanism
If you watch closely, you’ll see how predictable it all is.
A compliment appears...you brighten.
A criticism lands...you contract.
A desire whispers...you obey.
A fear flares...you flee.
It’s like a marionette show where every string is pulled by pleasure or pain, and the puppet insists, “I’m free.” The puppet isn’t bad; it just thinks every twitch is a choice. It doesn’t know what’s holding it up.
The Cost of Unawareness
The price of running the program is exhaustion.
You can keep it going for years — decades even — but there’s always that background hum of dissatisfaction. You try to drown it out with music, work, spirituality, wine, or self-help, but it keeps coming back. Because the problem isn’t in the content of life; it’s in the context.
You’ve never been shown how to look behind the screen, to see the awareness in which the entire drama is playing. Vedanta doesn’t say the world is wrong. It says you’ve been looking from the wrong side of the lens.
The First Crack
Once in a while, the loop falters. You catch yourself mid-scroll and wonder, What am I even looking for? You get what you wanted and feel the high dissolve faster than expected. You see someone else suffering and, for a second, the walls between you vanish.
Those moments are cracks in the shell. They hint that something vast and steady lies underneath the noise — a field of awareness that doesn’t come and go with circumstance.
That’s the first real clue. Not philosophy, not belief. Just a glimpse of something that doesn’t move while everything else does.
The Invitation
You can ignore the cracks and keep running. Most people do. Or you can pause and ask the one question that ends every loop: Who’s the one being pushed and pulled by all this?
That’s where Vedanta starts. Not in belief, but in genuine curiosity. Not in worship, but in looking.
Because the real problem was never the chase.
It was never knowing who was doing the chasing.
