Ego

January 28, 2001

Dear Patrick,

Do you exist? When you say 'I am', is the 'I' here a 'fictitious entity'??

When I say 'I am', this, to my mind, is the one thing of which I am

absolutely certain. There is no idea involved, no thinking. doing, desiring

or anything else. There is also no ego - this concept does not enter into it

at all. Nor does aha~NkaaraH, which is the Sanskrit for the process by which

this 'I am' awareness becomes attached to some imagined object, thought or

feeling perceived to be separate from it. In fact, this 'I am' awareness is

'one' - the same for all of us. It is when this awareness becomes 'I am

this' or 'I am that' that the non-dual reality becomes split into 'me' and

'not me'. This dualising thought brings into existence both the ego and the

world. It is the ego thus created that is the 'ghost in the machine', not

the 'I am' that brought it into existence. (In fact it would be more

accurate to reverse this statement - the 'I' is the reality and the world is

the ghost, not actually anything other than that same 'I'.)

There is a metaphor in the Pa~ncadashii that illustrates the difference

between the Self and the ego. It is that of a dance hall, lit up at

night-time for a performance. There is an audience watching a dancer,

accompanied by an orchestra, and the manager of the theatre is in the wings.

The dancer represents the intellect; the audience are the sense objects and

the musicians the sense organs. The manager represents the ego. The stage,

together with wings and orchestra pit represents the body with the audience

as sense-objects external to it and the ego behind the scenes, thinking he

is directing everything. So, where does the Self come into all of this?

Ignored by everyone, it is the light that illuminates all of this. Even when

all of the others have left the theatre, the light shines on, unaffected by

any of the events. Yet, without it, nothing would have been possible. It

alone brings everything together and allows it to take place, even though it

does not actually do anything at all. It is the unattached witness. Its mere

presence brings the seer and the seen together in the act of seeing.

I don't know whether you have been studying Sadananda's Brahmasuutra

commentary. If not, it might be worth hanging on for a few weeks and reading

my revamped notes on the adhyaasa bhaashhya (with minimal Sanskrit). This

deals with the 'mixing up' of aatmaa and anaaatmaa that is at the root of

our 'fundamental error'.

Regards,

Dennis

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

As I understand it 'ahamkara' is indeed a process whether it is

understood as 'the making of the utterance I' (i.e. first person

speech) or as the 'the making of the I' in the sense of the

identification of onself (why 'Consciousness'?) with a particular

thing. However the grammatical subject of first person speech --- the

doer, the thinker, the desirer --- that with which the I is identified

in ahamkara --- is a *fictitous* entity, a 'ghost in the machine'

which I refer to as the ego (preferring not to use the word jiva since

this word usually refers to something whose existence is not in

question). On this view enlightenment is nothing more than 'not taking

one's I literally' as the Gita puts it somewhere since realizing that

the ego is a *non-existent thing* makes possible the identfication of

the I with the parama-atman. (And to the extent that we achieve this

we do not desire things to be other than they are.)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

January 28, 2001

On Sat, 27 Jan 2001 colette wrote:

> advaitin, Gummuluru Murthy <gmurthy@m...> wrote:

> >

> > The following is my understanding of 'ego'.

> >

> > We take 'ego' as ahamkAra of vedAnta. In the english language, ego

> > also has the meaning of conceit, pride and vanity. In vedAnta, the

> > meaning is taken to be explicitly and exclusively as the feeling

> > I am the doer and I am the enjoyer of the fruits of actions. And

> > this is the meaning we will be discussing.

>

> Hi everyone :-)

>

> I guess to me this refers to the false personality of conditioned

> images roles & masks 'thinking' 'it' is the doer. Attachment to such

> conditioned thought patterns (of who you are,) can occur painfully for

> a long time until you transcend through meditation & with the love of

> Guru, & see you exist independent of them pure & clean.

>

> All the same, I found it helpful to help heal ego attachment when a

> friend told me they referred to it as the 'vulnerable child'. For sure

> I found it much more helpful to let go attachment to it, by

> embracement & acceptance then through resistance & warring with it.

> Love actually unifies. Resistance & denial is actually dualistic.

>

> I am enjoying all the discussions,

>

> Peace,

>

> Colette

>

namaste.

As per my understanding:

yes, the first paragraph seems a proper understanding

looking albeit from a different perspective. In the

second paragraph, you say taming the ego is better done

by embracing and acceptance than through resistance and

warring. I am not sure if I understood it right. If it

is warring, then between who? There is only one, the

ego of the jIvA, claiming ownership.

All this (the ego, etc) is through avidyA, ignorance

of the SELF. Once we know what we are, ego is no longer

there. Once the switch is turned on, the darkness

disappears. The darkness does not linger on anywhere

and does not get more densely dark in other rooms.

The darkness simply vanishes. Thus, I do not see it

as love and embrace or war and resistance. Simply,

jnAnam destroys avidyA. Along with avidyA goes ego.

Regards

Gummuluru Murthy

---------------------------

January 29, 2001

Dear Dennis,

What I am trying to argue here is that the desirer, which you view as

disappearing 'after englightenment', was never there in the first

place. In the nineteenth century everyone 'knew' that waves require a

medium for their propagation so empty space could not really be empty

but must be permeated with an 'ether' to enable the propagation of

light waves. Everybody 'knows' that verbs have to subjects so the

argument runs that where there is acting there must an actor and where

there is desiring there must be a desirer. Although the Gita tells us

over and over that there is no actor and that the gunas alone act,

this habit of language is so deeply ingrained that it does not seem to

have been subjected to much critical scrutiny.

As you correctly point out the litmus test here is the verb 'to be'.

Logical consistency demands that just as there is acting but no actor,

there is being but no 'be-er': the 'I' in 'I am' is indeed a

'fictitious entity'. (Note that this is no obstacle to accepting

that the sense of being entails absolute certainty and is experienced

in the same way by different people.)

If indeed the 'I' is *not* a fictitious entity then please explain

what becomes of it in the case of a split-brain operation. (This

operation consists of severing the corpus callosum which joins the

left and right cerebral cortices. It is sometimes performed in the

case of untreatable epilepsy since it has the effect of confining

seizures to one side of the brain. See, e.g., Julian Jaynes, _The

origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind_.)

Patients who undergo this operation experience nothing unusual about

themselves after recovery. However careful experimentation reveals

that they are unusual in ways which believers in the ghost in the

machine are apt to find rather spooky.

Recall that the left side of the body (including the left half of the

visual field) belongs to the right side of the brain and vice-versa.

The split-brain experiments consist in testing subjects by

simultaneously presenting different stimuli to the left and right

halves of the visual field and aksing the left and right halves of the

brain what has been seen. (The left half can speak but the right half

has to point.) The spooky part is that the left and right halves can

easily be induced to contradict each other and when such

contradictions occur the patient has no awareness of them.

Of course this example is troublesome not only to those who believe in

the ghost in the machine but also to the standard theory of karma,

reincarnation and enlightenment so it might prove to be of interest to

other members of the list.

Regards,

Patrick

> Dear Patrick,

>

> Do you exist? When you say 'I am', is the 'I' here a 'fictitious

entity'??

>

> When I say 'I am', this, to my mind, is the one thing of which I am

> absolutely certain. There is no idea involved, no thinking. doing,

desiring

> or anything else. There is also no ego - this concept does not enter

into it

> at all. Nor does aha~NkaaraH, which is the Sanskrit for the process

by which

> this 'I am' awareness becomes attached to some imagined object,

thought or

> feeling perceived to be separate from it. In fact, this 'I am'

awareness is

> 'one' - the same for all of us. It is when this awareness becomes 'I

am

> this' or 'I am that' that the non-dual reality becomes split into

'me' and

> 'not me'. This dualising thought brings into existence both the ego

and the

> world. It is the ego thus created that is the 'ghost in the

machine', not

> the 'I am' that brought it into existence. (In fact it would be more

> accurate to reverse this statement - the 'I' is the reality and the

world is

> the ghost, not actually anything other than that same 'I'.)

>

> There is a metaphor in the Pa~ncadashii that illustrates the

difference

> between the Self and the ego. It is that of a dance hall, lit up at

> night-time for a performance. There is an audience watching a

dancer,

> accompanied by an orchestra, and the manager of the theatre is in

the wings.

> The dancer represents the intellect; the audience are the sense

objects and

> the musicians the sense organs. The manager represents the ego. The

stage,

> together with wings and orchestra pit represents the body with the

audience

> as sense-objects external to it and the ego behind the scenes,

thinking he

> is directing everything. So, where does the Self come into all of

this?

> Ignored by everyone, it is the light that illuminates all of this.

Even when

> all of the others have left the theatre, the light shines on,

unaffected by

> any of the events. Yet, without it, nothing would have been

possible. It

> alone brings everything together and allows it to take place, even

though it

> does not actually do anything at all. It is the unattached witness.

Its mere

> presence brings the seer and the seen together in the act of seeing.

>

> I don't know whether you have been studying Sadananda's Brahmasuutra

> commentary. If not, it might be worth hanging on for a few weeks and

reading

> my revamped notes on the adhyaasa bhaashhya (with minimal Sanskrit).

This

> deals with the 'mixing up' of aatmaa and anaaatmaa that is at the

root of

> our 'fundamental error'.

>

> Regards,

>

> Dennis

>

> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

> As I understand it 'ahamkara' is indeed a process whether it is

> understood as 'the making of the utterance I' (i.e. first person

> speech) or as the 'the making of the I' in the sense of the

> identification of onself (why 'Consciousness'?) with a particular

> thing. However the grammatical subject of first person speech ---

the

> doer, the thinker, the desirer --- that with which the I is

identified

> in ahamkara --- is a *fictitous* entity, a 'ghost in the machine'

> which I refer to as the ego (preferring not to use the word jiva

since

> this word usually refers to something whose existence is not in

> question). On this view enlightenment is nothing more than 'not

taking

> one's I literally' as the Gita puts it somewhere since realizing

that

> the ego is a *non-existent thing* makes possible the identfication

of

> the I with the parama-atman. (And to the extent that we achieve this

> we do not desire things to be other than they are.)

> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>

January 29, 2001

Dear Patrick:

I agree that there was no desirer in the beginning and also there will

be no desirer in the end. This statement is quite consistent with

Shankara's interpretation from the Advaita Philosophical point of

view at the Paramarthika(absolute) state of the reality. This is also

reflected by statements such as: "I am that I am;Tat tvam Asi (That

it is);Aham Brahmastami (I am Brahman);" etc. At the Paramarthika

level, no distinction exists between either actor and act or desirer

and desire. You are quite right in your assessment that 'I' is

indeed a fictitious entity. Also at the Paramarthika level, the

entire 'vyavahara level of reality' is a fiction! Birth, death and our

entire life-span including time, space and karma belong to the same

fictional play with the fictitious characters, actions and

concepts.

The questions: 'Who Am I?," 'Who is the desirer?,' and 'who is the

actor' are real from the 'vyavahara' level of reality. But at

Paramarthika level of reality, these questions and also all answers to

such questions become meaningless! According to Advaita philosophy

all experiences during the vyavahara level appear real due to the

influence of Maya (or equally due to ignorance). For the Brahman,

Maya is fictitious and the question 'who am I" doesn't arise!

Sometime back, Dennis pointed out that the discussants seem to mix up

paramarthika and vyavahara levels during the discussions. I do agree

with Dennis and I believe that it is one of the major reasons for the

apparant disagreements between the discussants.

regards,

Ram Chandran

advaitin, pkenny@c... wrote:

> Dear Dennis,

>

> What I am trying to argue here is that the desirer, which you

> view as disappearing 'after englightenment', was never there

> in the first place. ....

> the 'I' in 'I am' is indeed a

> 'fictitious entity'. (Note that this is no obstacle to accepting

> that the sense of being entails absolute certainty and is

> experienced in the same way by different people.)

>

January 30, 2001

Dear Patrick,

I agree with Ram that there is still some confusion of paaramaarthika and

vyaavahaarika here. In 'reality' there is no desirer, actor or be-er, true.

In our apparent world, there does seem to be. It is certainly possible to

appreciate intellectually that there isn't even here but this is not our

innermost experience. Each of us has a direct sense of 'I am' which defies

any logic or argument. And my suggestion was that this is our glimpse into

the paaramaarthika. That there is existence and consciousness is true. When

this existence and consciousness (not actually two things of course) becomes

identified with anything else (e.g. desires or actions), this brings the

(illusory) ego (and the world) into existence and creates apparent duality.

'I am a desirer' is NOT the same as 'I am' - this is nothing to do with

semantics here. The ether is not analogous to the subject of the verb. The

point is that 'doing' is of the guuNaa but 'being' isn't. Action is anaatmaa

but being is aatmaa.

Yes, I am aware of the split-brain phenomena. (There is an interesting

novel, whose title I can't remember, in which the defence of a man who has

committed a murder depends upon this - the half responsible for motor

functions wielded the weapon and the other half was powerless to prevent it.

And haven't we had this discussion before??) But I don't see why this need

pose a problem. Though you and I are One in reality, there is no question

but that, on the relative level, we have different bodies and different

minds (opinions!). Mind is clearly related to brain in some fundamental ways

at least so why should not someone with a severed corpus callosum not

exhibit a split personality? The one consciousness is now identified with

two body-minds (or at least two minds in one body), bringing two egos into

existence.

Regards,

Dennis

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<