What or Who?

Ego / Alter-ego

Sat-Darshanam Verses 22 to 27 may help in understanding how the Personal / the individual ego keeps manifesting in and as the Alter-ego and the first step is to dissolve / merge this Alter-ego into the ego and then the second step is to let the ego on it's own dissolve / merge into the source from which it emerged out.

This may remind a sincere seeker the way :

माण्डूक्य उपनिषद् 

the mANDUKya UpaniShad

Points out about dissolving / merging the म्  / M into the उ / u and then dissolving / merging the उ / u  into the अ / a 

The three syllables :

 अ / a, उ / u and M / म्  

denote the manifest ॐ / OM

While this sound denotes the Supreme, Ultimate reality beyond and within the manifest.

ॐ जाग्रतादि त्रयोन्मुक्तं जाग्रतादिमयंस्तथा।।

ॐकारैकसुसंवेद्यं यत्पदं तन्नमाम्यहम्।।

(माण्डूक्य उपनिषद् मङ्गलम्)

This is therefore the  : 

आगमोक्तेः / AgamokteH 

Injunction from the scripture.

However this is not so easy to grasp the deeper sense of the above teaching as is given in the words of the scripture.

The world is the third person What

The ego / alter ego is the second person; an ad-mixture - विकार  of :

What and Who,

the first (what) is utterly dead matter, while the next (who) is consciousness, - either as in a man, or Consciousness as Supreme and Ultimate and Pure - beyond the both.

This point has been well elaborated in the following verse 26.

--

सद्दर्शनम्  / saddarsshanaM --

सत्प्रत्यया किं नु विहाय सन्तम्  ...

--

यदीशितुर्वीक्षणमीक्षितार-

मवीक्ष्य तन्मासिकेक्षणं स्यात्।।

न दृष्टुरन्यः परमो हि तस्य

वीक्षा स्वमूले प्रविलीय निष्ठा।।२२।।

सत्प्रत्यया किं नु विहाय सन्तम्... 

आत्मानमीक्षेत परं प्रपश्येत्-

इति आगमोक्तेः सुलभो न भावः।।

नात्मैव दृश्यो यदि का कथेशे

स्वयं तदन्नीभवनं तदीक्षा।।२३।।

सत्प्रत्यया किं नु विहाय सन्तम्  ...

धिये प्रकाशं परमो वितीर्य

स्वयं धियोऽन्तः प्रविभाति गुप्त।। 

धियं परावर्त्य धियोऽन्तरेऽत्र

संयोजनान्नेश्वरदृष्टिरन्या।।२४।।

सत्प्रत्यया किं नु विहाय सन्तम्  ...

न वक्ति देहोऽहमः प्रसुप्तौ

न कोऽपि नाभूवमिति प्रवक्ति।।

यत्रोदिते सर्वमुदेति तस्य 

धियाऽहमः शोधय जन्मदेशम्।।२५।।

सत्प्रत्यया किं नु विहाय सन्तम्  ...

देहो न जानाति सतो न जन्म

देह-प्रमाणोऽन्य उदेति मध्ये।।

अहंकृतिः-ग्रन्थि-विबन्ध-सूक्ष्म-

शरीर-चेतो-भव-जीव-नामा।।२६।।

सत्प्रत्यया किं नु विहाय सन्तम्  ...

रूपोद्भवो रूपतति प्रतिष्ठो

रूपाशनो धूतगृहीतरूपः।। 

स्वयं विरूपः विचारकाले 

धावत्यहंकार पिशाच एषः।।२७।।

सत्प्रत्यया किं नु विहाय सन्तम्  ...

Still we know all this theoretically only. 

To understand at the direct level through self-enquiry we can see how the sense of 'self' keeps us confused all the time, and we fail to notice that in its two forms we get overwhelmed and begin to say :

I have to get rid of the ego, I have to be free from the ego.

Can't we see the apparent but otherwise evident paradox / contradiction in our this thought where I want to free myself from myself? Isn't it self-contradictory only but ridiculous also!

But why we become a victim of such a paradox? Isn't it because though all the time and certainly, without least doubt, from the very insight we know ourself as the consciousness, as oneself who exists; and existence implies this knowing that we exist as consciousness only, somehow we tend to define and pronounce exactly what we might be!

So we accept whatever we have been told to us by others. Like

"You are so and so, you have this name, you're child, young man, boy or girl, man or woman, strong or weak, healthy or sick, you're of this age because you were born on such and such a date!" 

So we have a fairly excessive amount of data about what people think of of "me"  and we go on believing without raising a doubt whether it might be true or not.

In appearance this all is perfectly correct but inherently it's basically information and words only. If we turn to Patanjali's Yoga-Sutra for help, we can see how the sage has defined all this information in the following two aphorisms :

विपर्ययो मिथ्याज्ञानमतद्रूपप्रतिष्ठम्।।८।।

शब्दज्ञानानुपाती वस्तुशून्यो विकल्पः।।९।।

(समाधिपाद)

The above two aphorisms point out that all the worldly knowledge acquired is of two kinds only -

The first is  knowledge in the distorted form :

विपर्यय  / aberration  of the known fact,

The second is an alternative word used to denote something with no essence at all. 

This may be explained by the following examples : 

First of all let us see the example of a word "past".

The past in time tells us about an event that happened sometime ago -may be a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month an year or a few years or decades ago.

Is it the same in the memory of all those who were part of the event?  Don't all of them have a different narrative?  So the word "past" as it is told is but distortion of what exactly might have happened.

Take another word "Future".

The "past" was at least known to some extent by all, but what about the future? The happening that will happen after a short, long or very long time from now? This could neither be experienced, nor proved by any means, neither by logic, exoerience, nor by any example. Future necessarily doesn't mean uncertainty, but only a chance, a probability. At this moment, future is just unavailable to us to say and understand what it might be.  Really it is just absent. This is called but "option". It is therefore a solid example of  "विकल्प".

And how one could possibly handle that which is just not available?

Let us now see another example.

The "Past" was at least "known". Though maybe partially only,  but the "future" couldn't even be touched, what to speak of seeing, visualizing or handling it?

Isn't "Future" only an imagination of the kind? And in this moment of now, is just absurd to say that we will / can change or alter this assumed "Future".

How you're possibly going to acquire that miracle? Could you materialize the "future" and bring a mutation to this, of the kind now, at this very moment?

This is how there is no parallel to the

wisdom of Sage Patanjali.

।।ॐ नमो ऋषिभ्यः पूर्वेभ्यः।। 

The word :

"Brahman".

We have this word only and actually no object whatever indicated by this word. Still we discuss, define and debate a lot about this word and what might be it's possible meaning.

Then the scripture points out through the four  महावाक्य  :

1. अहं ब्रह्मास्मि, 

2. तत्त्वमसि, 

3. अयमात्मा ब्रह्म, 

4. प्रज्ञानं ब्रह्म 

The three of them indirectly tell about what might be the  ब्रह्म  /  Brahman.

The second also in the same way uses a synonym to tell what might be this 

ब्रह्म / Brahman .

The straightforward English translation would be something like this :

1. I Am Brahman -- I AM THAT, 

2. Thou Art That -- You are That.

3. The / This Self (Itself) is Brahman. 

4. Awareness, Consciousness  or the Attention is  verily the Brahman. 

In effect, this word  ब्रह्म  / Brahman is a good example of what is विपर्यय. 

Another example may be  the "sky" :

We all know what we call "sky" is just nothing, a void or a blank only.

In the same way we acquire beliefs and ideas only about ourself, the world, God, Truth and so many other things. Instead if we try to find out what the word "I"   might mean, our attention at once will be drawn to ourself -

What we think of ourselves and what we might be Really in our own true being.

Alter-ego is therefore the one, "Who"   passes through the five kinds of 

 वृत्ति / vRtti,

as are enumerated by the Sage in these aphorisms of Patanjali.

One who says : 

"I think", "I've to do this or that, "I will do this or that", "I'm happy or sad", "I'm the owner of this property, body, house, family, monet and the relations", "I've this experience" I've in my name this achievement", "My name is going to be reputed always".

The experience is the Alter-ego, while the one who claims to have had it is the ego. 

What we think and believe we are, is but the Alter-ego, while knowing I'm but existence and consciousness only is ego. But enquiring about the "I"  and knowing the full import of this word takes us beyond ego and the Alter-ego both. 

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