Between Patriarchy and Caretaking: A Personal Reflection

After my therapy session today, a few deep insights have been landing.

I am noticing a warmth, an openness, a light—an unconditioned aspect of myself. A place in me that feels absolutely pure, untouched. I came into contact with this while speaking about my recent trip to India.

Spending about three weeks with my parents, along with my wife and our two children, I caught a glimpse of my own conditioning—my childhood, the ways I internalized both my mother and my father. I could see how layers of conditioning formed on top of something far more fundamental.

As I revisited and explored the mostly difficult experiences of being with my family, I located two strong systems alive within me.

One is rigid, hard, imposing—an authoritarian, patriarchal presence.
The other is warm, caring, self-sacrificing, over-accommodating—always tending to others, carrying the emotional and practical labor that keeps the family functioning.

These two parts reflect systems that are deeply present in many Indian families—the patriarchal man, and the sanskari patni or bahu, endlessly devoted to the needs of her partner, children, and extended family.

I see now that both live in me. They are alive in me.

And I notice that I do not want to be either of them. Not because they are “bad,” but because both suffer—and both, in their own ways, create suffering.

What I am choosing instead is to rest as the one who is present. The one that existed before these identities were formed. Before conditioning. Before roles.

When I rest here, there is warmth. Presence. A loving, luminous quality.

My question—my living inquiry—is this:

How do I remain rooted in this unconditioned being while the conditions of life continue to evoke these parts?

How do I live as the pure presence in the midst of the world?

This is something I am sitting with. And something I feel called to share.