Ahamkara

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Vanadís

Ahamkara

Post by Vanadís »

I found my old notes about Kashmir Shaivism and they made me think if their concept of Ahamkara is the same thing than Monad in our system?
I will explain how I understand the meaning of Ahamkara and purified / impure Ahamkara etc.

Kashmir Shaivism can be found two kind of 'I' Consciousness. One is pure Shiva consciousness ”the light of consciousness reposing in itself”. The other one is a product of Maya. The Pure Ego (Pure Ahamkara) rests in pure Shiva consciousness and the impure Ego (impure Ahamkara) on outer objective forms. The latter is the one would like to get rid of by doing Yoga and Meditation.

Impure Ahamkara can be seen in attachments to form”I am wealthy”, ”I'm redhead”. Impure Ahamkara is about identifying self with floating emotions and outer objects. Pure Egoity is uncreated (akrtrima) and free. You cannot create it, but you can find it. In Kashmir Shaivism pure ego (Purified Ahamkara??) is called Spandasakti.

The Doctrine of Vibration – An Analysis of the Doctrines and Practices of Kashmir Shaivism by Mark S.G. Dyczkovski says, in Kashmir Shaivism Ahamkara is the source of all other senses:

”Ahamkara is uninterupted self-awareness, it is called the Sun of Knowledge. Around the sun of the ego rotate twelve suns of the other senses. They emerge from it and are drawn back into it just as, according to Saiva cosmography, the twelve suns, corresponding to the signs of the zodiac, emerge from and return to the thirteenth sun.”

”Thus the function on the ego is the self-arrogation of experience through the identification it engenders between consciousness and the senses which are its instruments of knowledge and action. Although those ignorant of the authentic identity of the ego are bound by its operations, it is nonetheless an essential component of individual consciousness. Directing its sensory and mental activity, it reflects in the microcosm the supremity of the universal ego that is the source and master of all that takes place in the domain of manifestation.”


This lets me think, that purifying Ahamkara and making it stronger is actually quite Left Hand Path, because Right Hand Paths in India try to get rid of Ego? I find also similarities between purified Ahamkara and Gurdjieff’s “Awaken person”. Stronger one’s Ahamkara gets, easier it is to be in Buddhi state – Awaken. And more questions arise in my mind… if Ahamkara is persons true core Beeing and it is bond to universal Shiva (consciousness), is that the same thing as Atman = Brahman?
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Nefastos
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Re: Ahamkara

Post by Nefastos »

Vanadís wrote:I found my old notes about Kashmir Shaivism and they made me think if their concept of Ahamkara is the same thing than Monad in our system?


I think that ahamkara as the fundamental feeling of self is and is not the same as the monad, as the spiritual atom or any being's essential undivided core is names in the Western doctrines.

The term ahamkara is also used, although not very widely, in theosophy (because of its link to advaita-vedantic Indian philosophy, which in turn is not very far from Kashmir Shaivism in its basic Sanskrit terminology).

In her Esoteric Instructions, Blavatsky in a way identidies the (Occidental) monad with (Oriental) jiva and tells that prâna (the life force) is the temporal state of jiva. You mentioned the spandashakti. Like jiva is the "spanda" (= vibration or tremor) of the higher existence (uninterrupted coitus of Shiva–Shakti in Kashmir Shaivism), so prâna as "incarnated jiva" is the same tremor in the temporal world. (About the role or jiva or the monad in spanda, please see also this important post in Vigyan Bhairav commentary.)

In a way, there is only one monad, which is the both ahamkaras. This is the emphasis of the Kashmir Shaivism. On the other hand, theosophy, advaita vedanta and almost all the Western classic philosophy and theology put the emphasis on two ahamkaras: that there is the formal reason (kâma manas) and the awakened mind (buddhi), whose vision of the world is fundamentally different. Of course, it is always the same "I" (ahamkara) that can see the world in both of these ways; but on the other hand, it is true that the visions are so different that it can very well be said that the "I" has changed fundamentally. (One way to cut this Gordian knot is to say that the ahamkara is always manas: whether it looks to the way of the kâma manas or to the way of buddhi. In exoteric uses, this is good enough way to say it. But it will have more & more problems when we discuss the higher states or being.)

Ahamkara is not a principle in our system (like are the linga, kâma, kâma manas, manas, buddhi, âtma, and prâna–jiva-current in the middle as the seventh), because any other principle can be seen as ahamkara, or, to be more precise, can be seen as itself because of ahamkara which experiences it. Without ahamkara there would be no principle. That brings it very close to the monad, as you said. (The monad is only discussed very briefly in the not yet translated Demons' Cube text, where it is taken as the sum total of the seed principles, similarly as the Aura – viz. Shakti – is taken as the sum total of the matrix principles.)

Vanadís wrote:Stronger one’s Ahamkara gets, easier it is to be in Buddhi state – Awaken.

Yes indeed, and this is the great difference between our philosophy and the most other Western philosophies of self: that the awakening of the true self is seen in its "bodhisattvic" journey to buddhahood, or universal love. Why the West (that is, our global culture nowadays) is so lost is because it has searched its self from a completely wrong direction; it has thought that there is "Ego" in "egotism", even though – because of the law of the paradox – the opposite is true.

Vanadís wrote:And more questions arise in my mind… if Ahamkara is persons true core Beeing and it is bond to universal Shiva (consciousness), is that the same thing as Atman = Brahman?

Yes, Ahamkara = Shiva is, for us, the same as Atman = Brahman. A little of this is in Legifer, where I wrote about the "Satan principle" as both kâma manas & âtma (corresponding to these two ahamkaras, one below and another above), and Shiva as Parabrahman.

All of my principles are my self (aham), that is why they are known as principles (not divisible or fundamental). This is something that is good to keep in mind when thinking about the partial correspondences and differently seen schemas from different philosophical schools.

In Paratrisika Vivarana aham in constantly read as:
a = Shiva
ha = Shakti
m = nara or manifestation.

It is also the reversed form of Maha(t), the Great i.e. the Universal Mind, the word which is used in the Secret Doctrine, for example. (SD only speaks rather of Brahma than of Shiva, because of the school differences mentioned above. It is of no consequence; Shiva, as said, is also Parabrahman.)
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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