The Ready-reckoner.

Characteristics and The Clues helpful in  recognizing   The Ego, The Alter-ego and The multiple Alter-ego(s).

अहं, प्रत्यहं और  प्रत्यहं के लक्षणों और उनके बीच के विविध भेदों की पहचान करने और उन्हें समझने  में सहायक कुछ संकेत :

लक्षण / characteristics

और,

पहचान / Identifying.

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A word about the Identification and Identifying :

This English word :

"Identification" 

is used to express the idea about getting oneself identified as something, and also in distinguishing between so many and  different objects of perception.

Saying -

"I am poor or wealthy, white or black, Indian, American, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, old or young ..."

is kind of a conceptual thought only and doesn't really tell anything about who or what you're, but saying you're hungry or weak, male or female, comfortable or tired, healthy or sick, no doubt certainly  tells something to some extent about and of you, which all and everone can at once understand.

Likewise, saying I am wise or ignorant, I'm successful, not really so successful, may tell something about you but which can't easily be verified.

One can recognize someone other by the external marks like the clothes, through some religious signs and the manners of speaking and behaving.

But what about the characteristic marks of someone who says I'm Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh or Hindu?

So if someone identifies oneself as such,it can't be easily verified whether it's true or not true.

In the same way when someone says - I'm happy, sad, angry, anxious, depressed then also it's only one's own assertion, no another one could know or verify if it's true or not. But it's a kind of  feeling, indulgence or involvement whereby one says so.

In other words, in this way one identifies oneself with the feeling. This feeling may change at any moment and then maybe, one identifies with the feeling that comes next.

"Identification" therefore means :

One may either recognize oneself as if belonging to a class, religion, gender, sect, people, country, nationality or may identify oneself with a feeling, sentiment, thought or philosophy.

Both these ways are forms of ego either at a societal level or a conceptual level.

Both the two identifications hide your true identity and impose upon you some  another, probably a false one, which has no visible evidence whatsoever.

Both these are therefore kinds of the Acquired / Artificial / Unfounded / Alter-ego.

There is absolutely no need to prove or verify what is your true identity.

Therefore the true identity of oneself and all the others too is evidently known to all and everyone without exception any, but for reasons whatever, rarely anyone refers to that as "I"  or as my-self.

Despite this being the evident truth, all human beings, even very learned ones, refer to themselves as if they belonged to this or that religion, class, nationality, country, social or cultural group, and see the irony / hype farce - even the so-called spiritual people are too, though they may hide this under the mask of the fake humility! 

In this way, the ego / Alter-ego work(s) through all and everyone.

Ego survives in the latent, dormant and  hidden, as well as in the manifest form. 

The latent is like in the state when one goes through the state of deep sleep.

In the dream state one may be partially asleep, while the mind may remember and part of the past experience and may go on visualizing whatever experience one may have passed through while in the waking state.

Again when fast asleep, the ego is still at work, because after waking up from the sleep one asserts how he enjoyed it. This means the same ego that enjoyed is now telling the experience.

While the ego underlies beneath all other kinds of experiences, all these are strung over a thread of the unique, one and the same, "I-sense" which is the plain ego, where the experience is experienced by the one (the individual) who claims to have gone through the experience.

Could there possibly be yet another ego,  who could be the "witness"?

Obviously ego is ever so overwhelmed by the sense of "individuality" while this "witness" can never be an individual just because it's unable to define itself, while the individual is always very sure and constantly keeps on assuming many a forms and kinds.

Understanding this whole pattern of the ego and the Alter-ego, one can not but go beyond it and also realize that there are no differently many individuals. No one is good, nor bad, it's only the ignorance of the true identity of oneself at one hand and those of the many forms and kinds of Alter-ego on the other that causes the apparent distinctions between man and man.

Everyone can sure go through this and see for oneself what might be one's true identity and how one should refer to it. 

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