In a world where success, relationships, careers, and social identities often define how we see ourselves, Mohit Mishra’s debut book, I Am Water, Not The Wave, offers a deeply personal and spiritual exploration of a more fundamental question: Who are we beyond the stories we tell about ourselves?
Written as a spiritual memoir, the book follows the journey of an India-born entrepreneur and technologist living in the Netherlands whose carefully constructed life begins to unravel. What initially appears to be a story of heartbreak, uncertainty, burnout, and personal failure gradually becomes something much deeper—a journey toward discovering that the self he believed to be broken was never broken in the first place.
At the heart of the book is a simple yet profound metaphor encountered during a walk through a Dutch forest: “As a little wave in an ocean of waves, know that you are water, Mohit – not the wave.”
The wave represents the temporary identities through which human beings experience life—their careers, relationships, achievements, disappointments, successes, failures, and personal stories. The water represents the deeper reality beneath all these changing forms: the unchanging awareness in which every experience appears and disappears.
For Mohit, this idea does not remain merely a philosophical concept. It becomes the beginning of an intensely personal transformation.
A cancelled wedding becomes one of the pivotal moments of his journey, forcing him to confront a question that lies beneath many of life’s struggles: “Who am I without the story I’ve been selling to myself?” As familiar definitions begin to fall away, he starts looking beyond achievement and external success for something more enduring.
His search takes him across countries and traditions, introducing him to a series of people he describes as “lanterns”—individuals whose presence and wisdom illuminate a path that he could not yet see clearly for himself.
Among them is a Dutch couple who help him look beyond his temporary identity and recognise his true nature. In Kerala, a monk transforms ideas about karma, forgiveness, and scripture from intellectual concepts into a living mirror through which Mohit begins to examine himself. In Palo Alto, an octogenarian’s dining table becomes an unexpected divine altar, revealing a profound sense of unity among different religions and spiritual traditions.
The journey then leads to an ashram in Rishikesh, where the deeper source behind these “lanterns” begins to reveal itself, and eventually to a Himalayan camp centred around an Upanishad, where the highest insight of the journey begins to crystallise.
What makes I Am Water, Not The Wave distinctive is that it does not present spirituality as an escape from ordinary life. Instead, it explores how spiritual understanding can transform the way one experiences relationships, ambition, disappointment, desire, work, and everyday existence.
Drawing from Advaita Vedanta, Bhakti, meditation, the Upanishads, and encounters with people from different cultures and religious backgrounds, the book explores a universal possibility: that different spiritual traditions may be pointing toward the same underlying Truth.
Mohit Mishra brings a unique perspective to this exploration. Born in India and now based in the Netherlands, he studied computer science and engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi. He later co-founded a civic mobility company that works with cities and public agencies in India and Europe, building digital infrastructure for buses, parking, and public transportation.
For years, his life existed between two seemingly different worlds. By day, he worked in technology and entrepreneurship, solving practical problems and building systems for modern cities. By night, he quietly wrestled with heartbreak, burnout, uncertainty, and a question that technology and professional success could not answer: “Who am I, really?”
That internal conflict eventually became impossible to ignore and drew him toward the living traditions of Vedanta, Bhakti, and meditation.
Mohit regularly studies Advaita Vedanta under teachers from Chinmaya Mission and has been influenced by encounters with contemporary spiritual masters as well as ordinary people who became “lanterns” in his journey across Europe, India, and the United States. His spiritual practice combines Advaita Vedanta and Bhakti while remaining rooted in everyday life rather than withdrawal from it.
At its core, I Am Water, Not The Wave is not simply a memoir about one man’s spiritual search. It is an invitation to question the identity we have constructed and to look toward the awareness that exists beneath it.
The book ultimately arrives at a striking expression of freedom: “God + Desire = Man; Man – Desire = God.”
Through this insight, Mohit explores the possibility that true freedom does not necessarily mean getting everything we want. Instead, it may mean reaching a state in which nothing external is required to experience completeness.
Freedom, in this understanding, is not about becoming someone else. It is about recognising what was already present beneath the changing waves of life.
With its blend of personal storytelling, spiritual inquiry, philosophical reflection, and cross-cultural encounters, I Am Water, Not The Wave offers readers a contemplative journey into identity, desire, suffering, faith, and the search for the Self.
Mohit Mishra’s first book is ultimately a quiet invitation to pause amid the noise of modern life and ask a question that may change everything: Are we really the wave we have spent our lives trying to become, or have we always been the water?