The Mirror, the Walk, and the Meaning of “Citizen”

Some words become so familiar that we stop hearing them properly.

Citizen is one of them.

In everyday usage, it sounds administrative: a passport, a voter ID, a tax number, a box ticked on a form. Something you are, by virtue of paperwork.

But as I listened to Aruna speak with Dr. R. Balasubramaniam on Luminary Lounge (episode here), I realised he was asking for a far more demanding definition—one that cannot be printed, granted, or inherited.

Citizenship, as he frames it, is not a status.

It is a practice. A lived relationship with the people around you, and with the place you call home.

Early in the conversation, he says it with a clarity that leaves little room for performative patriotism:

“Not a voter, not a taxpayer, not a passport holder — a citizen.”

I’ve kept returning to that line because it quietly removes our usual escape routes. If citizenship is a practice, then it must be visible in the unglamorous details—how we behave when nobody is watching, when there is nothing to gain, when the system is inconvenient, when the answer requires patience rather than outrage.

The Walk That Wasn’t Only About RTI

Aruna asks him about a long walk he undertook—moving through villages to popularise the Right to Information Act. On the surface, it reads like public education: a campaign to spread a democratic tool.

But Dr. Balu reveals that the walk carried another purpose, one that feels almost more important: it was an internal test.

He speaks about something many people sense but rarely admit—how easily good work can become ego work. How quickly service can turn into identity. How praise, especially public praise, creates a subtle intoxication: I am the one making things happen. I am the hero of this story.

In the vocabulary of the Vedantic tradition, this is the swelling of kartrutva—the sense of doership. And what he gestures toward is its relinquishment: not relinquishing action, but relinquishing the vanity that tries to attach itself to action.

He references Vivekananda’s insistence on inner strength and purity of motive. Vivekananda was not interested in timid spirituality; he wanted strength, fearlessness, character. But he also warned, repeatedly in spirit if not always in the same phrasing, against the ego that hides inside virtue—the ego that can turn even service into self-worship.

Dr. Balu’s line lands like a corrective:

“Remember that you are not the doer… you are the instrument of change.”

I found that deeply countercultural.

Modern professional life trains us to build a narrative: my impact, my brand, my legacy, my personal “why.” We are rewarded for being seen as central.

But the Ramakrishna tradition—through Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings and Vivekananda’s fierce reinterpretation—pushes a different posture: work fully, love deeply, serve courageously, but keep the ego on a short leash. In that frame, you do not become smaller. You become cleaner. Less noisy. More effective.

A Small Story That Carries a Whole Philosophy

Midway through the episode, Dr. Balu shares a moment from the walk that has stayed with me because it is so simple it cannot be faked.

An elderly woman—illiterate—buys his RTI book. She cannot read it. She does not pretend she can. She buys it anyway, as a gesture of participation.

“You have walked in this blistering heat. The least I can do is buy the book.”

This is not a story about a book. It is a story about belonging.

In urban life, we often relate to society as consumers of services: if something fails, we complain; if something works, we move on. But what he describes is a deeper social fabric—people who may lack formal education yet possess an instinctive civic maturity: if something matters, I will contribute what I can.

It reminded me of something Sri Ramakrishna conveyed through his parables: the sacred is not found only in temples or texts, but in the sincerity of the heart. The external forms vary; the inner orientation is what counts. The woman buying the book is not performing citizenship; she is practising it.

And perhaps this is what we miss when we reduce democracy to elections alone. Voting matters, of course. Laws matter. Institutions matter. But the daily health of a society also depends on ordinary people repeatedly choosing ownership over apathy.

Power Over Others vs. Power Within

One of the most useful distinctions Dr. Balu makes is about power.

Many people, consciously or not, chase power over others: authority, control, the ability to compel outcomes, the comfort of being unchallenged.

But he argues that the more fundamental form is power within—inner strength, self-mastery, the capacity to act without being consumed by ego, fear, or resentment.

This idea is deeply aligned with the Vedantic spirit that Vivekananda brought to modern life: the insistence that the human being is not meant to be merely reactive, not meant to be enslaved by impulse. Strength, in this tradition, is not aggression. Strength is steadiness. Strength is restraint. Strength is the ability to remain ethical when you have the option not to be.

In practical terms, I heard this as a warning: if I don’t develop power within, I will borrow power from outside—status, money, institutional authority—and then use it primarily to protect myself. That protection can easily become domination, even when it is dressed up as competence or “leadership.”

The inner life, then, is not a luxury. It is infrastructure.

The Mirror Metaphor (and Why It Is Uncomfortable)

Near the end, Aruna asks him what uncomfortable question could change a listener’s trajectory. His answer is not a trick, not a slogan.

He talks about the courage it takes to look into the mirror honestly.

Not the polished mirror we hold up in public. The private one.

And he uses a metaphor I can’t shake: don’t blame the mirror if it’s coated with dust. Wipe it. Clean it. Face what it reflects.

He acknowledges why this is frightening: you will see the gaps. The inconsistencies. The places where your self-image is kinder than your behaviour.

That, to me, is where the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda current is strongest. Sri Ramakrishna emphasised truthfulness and simplicity; Vivekananda demanded fearlessness and self-discipline. Put together, they point toward a life in which spirituality is not an ornament—it is a method of self-correction.

And self-correction is not self-loathing. It is self-respect.

What I’m Taking Into My Own Life

I don’t want an episode like this to become something I merely admire. The real test of listening is what changes after the listening.

Here are three practices I am trying to carry forward:

1. Treat citizenship as behaviour, not identity.Not a label I claim, but a posture I practise: in public spaces, in daily honesty, in how I treat “the other,” in whether I participate or merely criticise.

2. Interrogate the ego inside “good work.”The moment I feel most righteous is often the moment my motives deserve the most scrutiny. Am I serving—or am I secretly auditioning?

3. Build power within before asking for power without.The discipline to listen, to restrain, to reflect, to correct myself—these are not soft virtues. They are the roots of trustworthy leadership.

   
   

The Question Worth Sitting With

If I strip away the labels—professional, parent, achiever, citizen—what remains?

And more uncomfortably:

Where, in my daily life, am I outsourcing responsibility that I would like someone else to carry?

Dr. Balu’s life work suggests that societies do not improve only through policy. They improve when enough individuals choose inner clarity over ego, participation over detachment, and responsibility over convenience.

That is not romantic. It is practical. And it begins, as he says, with the courage to look into the mirror.

Watch the episode: https://youtu.be/b9xshTBYKOw (Luminary Lounge Episode #33 with Dr. R. Balasubramaniam — interviewed by my wife, Aruna)

References / further reading (in the spirit of this episode)

• Vivekananda’s lectures and writings on strength, character, and service (often compiled as The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda)

• Teachings and parables of Sri Ramakrishna (commonly compiled in The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)

• The Bhagavad Gita on self-mastery and selfless action (nishkama karma)

• The Upanishadic tradition of self-inquiry as the foundation for right action