Page 8 - NAMAH-Jul-2019

Editorial

Dealing with the ego

The parable of Sambara prime importance to ego-functioning.

In Yoga Vasistha, an important Vedanta What is the ego
treatise, the psychological significance
of the ego is beautifully described in the This brings us to a fundamental question.
parable of the mighty demon, Sambara who What actually is the ego? Are we born with the
had produced from himself three projected ego or does it appear at birth, consolidating
formations or emanations in the form of itself during the process of growth?
three apparently invincible demons. These
were robot-like zombies who had no ego In the ascending scale of terrestrial evolution,
and hence no psychological attributes. They life-energy manifests in matter and within the
did not know about victory or defeat and matrix of animated matter, the mind-principle
were only programmed to kill. The gods manifests at an optimal point of development.
were terrified and turned to Brahma, the This amalgam of successively manifested
Supreme Creator, for help. planes of consciousness superimposed on
and intertwined with each other needs to be
Brahma explained that these zombie-demons coherently organised around a coordinating
could not be defeated unless they developed principle to have a sense of objective presence
an ego-sense. However, as these beings were in Space and a sense of dynamic mobility in
totally ignorant, they could be manipulated Time. The responses of the emergent being
to develop the feelings of ‘I’ and ‘mine’. The to the contacts of Nature are modulated by
continued battle with the gods in which the sensory perception, memory, intelligence
demons went on winning finally generated and will and all inputs and outputs gather
in them the basic concept of ‘I am’. an optimal and temporal consistency around
an ‘ego-sense’. As an infant grows up, the
Once the ego-sense arose, desire developed ego-sense gives a uniqueness that first makes
with concomitant consequences — they it aware of the boundaries of the body (the
became slaves of desire. They lost their infant at one stage pinches itself and others
freedom and experienced fear. They could to see the difference in its own sensations).
now be easily defeated by the gods (1). At the next stage it becomes aware of the
capacities of its power to be assertive about
This parable shows how important the ego its demands as well as about its own strength.
is for psychological conditioning. Indeed, all With further development and the gradual
modern schools of psychology have to give organisation of the cognitive faculty, the child

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