Ahamkara

THE AHAMKARA
--from "Prakruti" by Robert Svoboda

     Each of us maintains separateness from other living beings for as long as Nature permits us to remain alive. Nature gives us the space bounded by the skin and the digestive tract to call our own. Every thing outside the skin is part of the environment. You are a part of my environment, and I am a part of your environment. Nature is the sum total of all individuals and their environments.

      Inside your digestive tract is material which was originally part of your environment. Once it had its own separate existence, its own individuality; now it is on metabolic probation, attempting to pass the digestive exams to become a part of you. Should your gastro-intestinal tract rupture, some of this material will escape into your body cavity. Because your body can recognize it as alien a tremendous reaction Will occur, which if allowed to progress will kill you very quickly.

      Should your external skin fail to do its job, as might occur after severe bums, alien marauders will enter your system, which may also result in your demise. We owe our continued day-to-day existence to the ad-mirable fortitude of our twin boundaries, the external skin of the body and the internal skin of the gut.

Diseases are beings with parasitical intentions. Some have collective bodies, like worms, bacteria and viruses, and show signs of collective consciousness just as social insects like ants and termites do. Other dis-eases have no bodies of their own and "take possession" of an organism in order to express the compulsions of the individual existences. Still others, entities like cancer, are created within the body. Whatever the intruder, cure occurs when the alien personality is expelled from the organism and the host's innate personality returns to normal.

     Aliens are unwelcome in a healthy body. An unbalanced system encourages improper digestion of food, which produces physical and mental toxins, called "Ama" in Sanskrit. Ama acts as food for parasites, and encourages them to thrive in the organism. Indigestion develops because of poor eating and living habits, deliberate, willful indulgence in unhealthy practices which are collectively called "Prajnaparadha," or "crimes against wisdom." Indigestion prevents nutrients from reaching the tissues, and weakens the host's immune defenses.

    The aura is the first line of defense against parasitical beings. The second line of defense is formed by the skin and the gut. A third line of defense, the immune system, awaits to intercept and destroy any par-asites which somehow find their way past the first two defenses. The immune system, which communicates with both the skin and the gut, is a sense organ, a "sixth sense" for intruders. It is an intricate web of T-cells, B-cells, antibodies and lymphokines, a system of fascinating complexity all controlled by a single boss: Ahamkara.

    Ahamkara ceaselessly identifies itself with each of the trillions of cells in the body. Your Ahamkara constantly reminds every one of your cells of its identity as a sub-unit of that grand and glorious entity known as You. The Ahamkara ensures that only those cells which swear allegi-ance to its overlordship are allowed to remain alive in the body. All al-iens are hunted down and ruthlessly slaughtered, and all rebels-mutant or cancerous cells re mercilessly executed as a warning to other cells who might dare to resist your rule.

    You can remain alive, safe inside your castle, only so long as your Ahamkara serves as your garrison governor. When she is injured, alien beings may find a weak spot in your defenses and strike you down. When she, the warder who forces your cells to slave away for you, re-linquishes, her charge, all the inmates are free to go their own ways, and you die. She is your wife, your lover, your friend, your guide and ad-visor, and your servant. She is your all-in-all. Above all, she is your mother.

    Ahamkara is feminine because she is a fraction of the Divine Mother Goddess Nature. She is your wife because she is always with you, bonded in the marriage of body to mind to soul which is you. She is your lover because only the power of her love can bind all your cells to-gether and induce them to function in concert as a unified being. She is your friend because she is always there to sympathize with you, She guides and advises you regarding your self-interest. As servant, she tire-lessly slaves away to keep you running.

    Most important of all these aspects is her relationship to you as mother. The "I am" principle aggregates to itself all the building blocks which form you: the Five Great Elements which create the body, the sense organs, and the mind. You are born because of the "I-former," so she is your mother. The ancient Rishis knew this well, and worshipped their own Ahamkaras as mothers in order to enter into loving relation-ships with them. India is a motherland because the Rishis in their tran-scendent wisdom recognized the creative importance of Mother Nature, Even Adi Shankaracharya himself, the originator of ten sects of renun-ciate monks who shun all normal human interactions, mandated wor-ship of the Goddess in all his monasteries.

    Diseases arise when Ahamkara is afflicted and immunity weakens. The Sanskrit word for immunity is Vyadhikshamatva, which translates literally as "forgiveness of disease." You retain your health only so long as you are willing to forgive your stresses, shrug off adversity and adapt to new situations. Resistance to change always impedes the workings of the immunity. An old Sanskrit proverb tells us, "Kshama cha janani”: the essence of motherly love is forgiveness. Damage to the Ahamkara--mother weakens our innate forgiveness and predisposes us to disease.

   Treatment of Ahamkara is the ultimate medicine. India's sages have long known that good spiritual health is a prerequisite for good physical and mental health. Spiritual health is a dynamic balance between a strongly integrated individual personality and the cosmic personality of Nature, a balance which is possible only so long as a being remembers its debt to Mother Nature.

    Only immortal beings can be completely healthy, because only they have so empowered their own Ahamkaras that no alien being can ever invade them. India's ancient Rishis performed long penances to completely awaken and control their Ahamkaras, and they became immortal in consequence. Because they wanted to communicate their experiences to others, they established the system of philosophical "seeing" which students of Ayurveda use to look at embodied life.

    When the wise Rishis examined their own experience and consulted their intuitions they realized that human consciousness, will and identity must be fragments of Nature's own consciousness, will and identity. The subtlety of their faculties of perception allowed them to contact Nature and communicate with Her directly. One of the first things they learned concerned the structure and origin of the universe.

Nature told them that first exists

Pure Existence

which experiences desire for manifestation,
and splits into

Consciousness and Will

which then mate together. Their offspring is

Intellect

which is the power of discrimination.
Intellect then evolves into

Ahamkara

Which is the "I-former." The universe fills with numberless little bundles of intellect with individuality, all searching for a means of ex-pression. According to their innate predilections these Ahamkara--bundles manifest as: waves of kinetic energy, Rajas material particles of potential energy, Tamas and subjective consciousness, Sattva

--------------To Be Continued

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