What is the difference between ahankara as concept and as object?

Transcript

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question you mentioned in your guitar daily article that ahankar as an object is different from ahankar as a concept can you explain the difference between the two answer ahankar is mentioned in the bhagavad-gita as one of the material elements in the verse 7.4 so now all the other material elements that we see at least the gross elements earth water fire air we can easily understand that they are tangible external objects so the earth is an object and similarly water fire air also objects so now in the same succession when krishna mentions mind intelligence and ego so krishna classifies all of them as a part of the material energy and being a part of the material energy they also have an objective existence of course they are subtle they are not across there we cannot sense their presence with our with our senses but at the same time they do exist as objective entities they exist as building blocks of the universe and building blocks of the body so even when the soul departs from the universe it is described that there are various coverings of the universe so the various elements have an objective existence and they comprise objective layers in the covering of the universe so it’s just as earth water fire air are objects object do things similarly mind intelligence also thinks now we also consider the ego to be a conception so for example um indian may have the conception of identifying with india so the false ego in that sense the content of the false ego is different for an indian than it is for say pakistani or american but they all have the common element false ego and the conception of identifying with a particular nationality that is established through the false ego so that is the element false ego is the tool for the concept of false ego to be established so for the spiritual soul to function in the material world there has to be some functional tools so for example when gandhari covered her eyes and was no longer able to see so there is concept of seeing and there is a tool for seeing so she obscured the tool for seeing that was eyes by covering my eyes through blindfolds but still the concept of seeing is different from the tool for seeing or another example when when when a person becomes self-realized and say becomes free from lust and free from sex desire then at that time also the the organ for sex will still remain the body of the person so that is the concept of sexual enjoyment and then the tool for sexual enjoyment so even when the concept of sexual enjoyment has been removed by purification the tool for sexual enjoyment will remain and the tool for sexual enjoyment will serve some other purpose say excretory purpose or whatever so this is an example to understand how the concept may be eradicated but still the tool may remain so similarly when a person becomes self-realized at that time for that person there is no concept of false ego that person does not identify with the body that he or she has or with the nationality or any similar bodily designation and in that sense that person does not have an ego but there is a proper differential between the false ego and the true ego so the sense of I-ness is there and the person will identify that oneself as a soul and a servant of Krishna so that is the conception of the ego will remain but now it will not be false ego it will be true ego at the same time although the false ego has been in a sense destroyed the element called ahankar will still remain as a constituent of the material body so the concept of jeevan mukta indicates that the concept of false ego is destroyed but still the gross body is there and the subtle body is also there when the subtle body is also destroyed along with the gross body at that time the soul becomes liberated and turns back to the spiritual world that is called as the concept of videha mukti videha means without the body so one leaves the body and becomes liberated and goes back to the spiritual world so for the spiritually realized souls the difference between the concept and the object of false ego that will be very clear for others we have the false ego the conception that I am so and so at a material level and we that identification that misidentification works through the tool that is the element called false ego and as we become purified our conception of the misidentification will decrease but that does not mean that accordingly the percentage of the element called false ego in the subtle body will decrease now whatever it is it is still there and of course to use the term percentage of false ego may be a confusion of categories because percentage is something which we apply to our gross conceptions or to gross objects so how much we can apply it to the subtle conceptions will also be questionable but nonetheless the point remains that there is a tool and the tool the soul can use it or the soul can refuse to use it and if the soul refuses to use that tool then there is no longer the conception of misidentification the tool remains