Meditation and the Ego

The clearest experiment I run on myself has a sample size of one and a very reliable result. Skip meditation for a few days and the ego quietly returns — I start identifying as Nikhil again, hard. The signature thoughts:

"How am I more special than others? Why am I not as happy, or as lucky, as others in certain areas?"

Comparison-based happiness. Instead of being happy for everybody in general, I'm grading myself against everybody in particular. It's limited thinking, and it comes from identifying deeply with body and mind.

What the distance does

With practice, the identification loosens — not enlightenment, just distance. And from that distance something flows automatically: gratitude, and the wish that everybody be happy. The two states are mutually exclusive in practice: ego grades, the witness blessings. There's no effort in the second; it's what remains when the first relaxes.

Which leads to the strangest item on my building list: an AI that reminds me of the things I forget — not appointments, but essence. In Karpathy's frame, today's AI is a computer on an autonomy slider. Maya pushes us into the past or the future; a rooted-in-the-present assistant is, absurd as it sounds, just an advanced reminder app for the most important thing we forget.

"Ask why? And don't stop." — even about your own unhappiness.

Sources: memo of 24 Jan 2026 · AI's role in my life · Vipassana as system change. Full transcripts in the archive.