 47. Ego-I |
The ancient name for the egoic process is the "anti-Christ" (or separate consciousness, i.e., a consciousness that is not one with God).
The eight elemental qualities that enter into all created life, from atoms to man, are earth, water, fire, air, ether, sensory mind (manas), intelligence (Buddha), and individuality or ego (Ahamkara, Hindu).
-Yogananda
Water, earth, fire, air, ether, mind and understanding, and self-sense; This is the "eightfold division" of my nature. Nature, which is identified with "Maya," is the basis of the objective world. These are the forms which unmanifested nature (energy) takes when it becomes manifested. This is an early classification which later becomes elaborated into twenty-four principles. The senses, mind and understanding belong to the lower, the material nature. For according to the "Samkhya" psychology, which is accepted by the "Vedanta," they effect contact with objects and consciousness results only when the spiritual subject illuminates them. When the self illuminates, the activities of the senses, of mind and of understanding become processes of knowledge and the objects become objects of knowledge. (Ahamkara) or the self sense, belongs to "object" side. It is the principle by which the ego relates objects to itself. It attributes to itself the body and the senses connected with it. It effects the false identification of the body with the spiritual subject and the sense of "I" or "my" is produced.
-Bhagavadgita
The body, the forms of senses with which we identify the subject belong to the idea side. The ego is an "artificial construction" obtained by abstractions from conscious experience. The "witnessing consciousness" is the same whether it lights up the blue sky or a red flower. Though the "fields" which are lit up may be different. The light which illuminates them is the same. Desire and hatred, pleasure and pain, the aggregate (the organism), intelligence and the steadfastness described. This in brief is the "field" along with its modifications. Even the mental traits are said to qualify the "field" because they are objects of knowledge. The knower is a "subject" and the turning of it into an object or a "thing" means ignorance (Avidya). Objectivation is the ejection of the subject into the world of the objects. Nothing in the object world is an "authentic reality." We can realize the subject in us only by overcoming the enslaving power of the object world, by refusing to be dissolved in it. Suffering is the process through which we fight for our true nature.
-Bhagavadgita
"Do not do what you want (as the Ego-I), and then you may do what you like" - (from the spiritual state).
-Sadasiva, Circa 1750 India
The ego-principle, "Ahamkara" (lit., "I do") is the root cause of dualism or the seeming separation between mankind and its creator. "Ahamkara" brings human beings under the sway of "Maya" (cosmic delusion) by which the subject (ego) falsely appears as object; the creatures imagine themselves to be creators.
-Yogananda
The "logic" of the Greeks was founded in "natural intuition" and true observation. A sort of fundamental enlightenment or universal knowledge. The so-called logic of today is nothing more than memorized thought structures, which is not logical. (a linear bio-computer - brain programming)
