07.04 - Ahankara = aham + car “You are your car,” declares a billboard that displays a person proudly driving a good-looking car. The ad alludes to how one’s car defines one’s public image in a status-driven world. Additionally, the ad’s explicit identification of a person with a vehicle illustrates how we misidentify with that which we are not. The subtle arrangement that brings about such misidentification of the soul with the body and things connected with the body is called ahankara. Significantly, the Bhagavad-gita (07.04) also mentions ahankara as one of the eight material elements. Thus, ahankara is both an object and a concept; the object, a material element, is the tool through which the concept, the misidentification, is created and sustained. Ahankara as an object, as one of the material elements of our body, will remain as long as we are in material existence. But ahankara as the concept of misidentification will disappear when we become self-realized. To recognize how our bodily identification is a misidentification, we can contemplate the car-body analogy. Just as the driver is ontologically different from the car and is functionally its activator, the soul is ontologically different from the body and is functionally its activator. The car-body analogy works because we intuitively understand that the driver is different from the car. Given this implicit understanding, the above ad’s explicit identification of a person with a car illustrates graphically how our culture increases our ahankarato absurd levels. Just as the desire to enjoy a car causes a person to misidentify with it, the desire to enjoy the body and bodily pleasures causes us to misidentify with it. As an antidote to such desires, we can remind ourselves of the absurdity of our bodily misidentification using a creative, non-historical etymology of the word ahankara as aham+ car“I am my car.” ** 4. Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego—all together these eight constitute My separated material energies. For any queries please visit thespiritualscientist
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 09:47:33 +0000
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