# False Ego *On the illusion of bodily identification - how we mistake the body for the self* --- ### The Greatest Illusion > Actually, I am a spirit soul. That is explained in the beginning of Bhagavad-gītā, that the spirit soul is never born or is never dead. He continues his life even after the destruction of this particular type of body. This body is only a flash, for some years only. But it will be finished. It is being finished by degrees. Just like I'm an old man of seventy-three years old. Suppose if I live eighty years or a hundred years, these seventy-three years I have already died. That is finished. Now a few years I may remain. So we are dying from the date of our birth. That is a fact. — [[spoken/1968/681202bg.la|Bhagavad-gītā 7.1, Los Angeles, 1968]] --- ### No Better Than Animals > Actually we are concerned at the present moment with the body. Either "Indian," "American," "Hindu," "Muslim," "brāhmaṇa," "kṣatriya," they are all bodily conception of life. But śāstra says that those who are on the bodily conception of life, they are no better than the animals. If on the bodily conception of life we take leadership, then the position is sa eva go-kharaḥ. Go means cows, animal, and kharaḥ means ass. So he is no better than the animals go and kharaḥ. — [[spoken/1976/761225sb.bom|Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 5.5.1, Bombay, 1976]] --- ### Dog Thinking, Man Thinking > The first charge is that anyone who is in bodily concept of life, he's animal. First of all, refute this. If you are thinking that "I am this body," "I am Hindu," "I am Muslim," "I am American," "I am this," "I am that," then you are animal. This is our first charge. What they will answer? What is the difference? If a dog is thinking "I am dog," and I am thinking "I am Indian" or "American," what is the difference? What is the difference between the dog and the man? — [[spoken/1976/760704mw.wdc|Morning Walk, Washington D.C., 1976]] --- ### Go-khara Civilization > So body..., I'm not body. So therefore mukti means when I shall give up this bodily conception of life, that is mukti. And so long I shall be absorbed or captivated or conditioned by the bodily concept of life, there is no question of mukti. This kind of solution will not help you, because you have to die. So it does not mean modern age or previous age, past age. That is not Vedic system. The old system is going on, everything. This is India's culture. Why should we identify ourself as animal—"I am Indian," "I am American," "I am Hindu," "I am Muslim"? It is wrong type of civilization, go-khara civilization. — [[spoken/1977/770324sb.bom|Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 2.3.20, Bombay, 1977]] --- ### False Ego in Material Elements > Ahaṅkāra, what we call ourselves, in English it has been said the law of identity. Everyone has his own ego, or actually false ego, but actually I am not this. It is simply a covering of bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ, this very body. This body is composition created by the mixture of fire, water and earth. And within this subtle body there is the position of the spirit soul. According to the state of one's mind intelligence and false ego at the time of death one gets the next body. — [[spoken/1972/720114le.jai|Lecture, Jaipur, 1972]] --- ### Ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā > Ahaṅkāra, our false egotism, we are suffering by the punishment offered by nature. So the cause is godlessness. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ, ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā kartāham iti manyate. One who is bewildered by false ego thinks himself the doer of activities that are actually carried out by the three modes of material nature. This is the verdict of Bhagavad-gītā. — [[spoken/1976/761225sb.bom|Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 5.5.1, Bombay, 1976]] --- ### Identifying with the Dead Body > Anyone who is identifying this dead body, or this material body, which is a composition of tri-dhātu, kapha-pitta-vāyu, some blood, flesh and some secretion, and some bones—if anyone identifies the self with this lump of matter, then he is described as no better than cow and ass. Yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke. So at the present moment especially, this ignorance is there always in the material world, that one is identifying this material body with the real self. — [[spoken/1972/721122bg.hyd|Bhagavad-gītā 2.17, Hyderabad, 1972]] --- ### The Real Father > When a man is dead, his relatives cry, lament: "Oh, my father has gone." But the father, as we have seen, he's lying on the floor. Where he has gone? He's lying on the floor. Why you are crying, "Oh, my father has gone away"? That means the person who has gone away, who has left this body, you have not never seen. You have seen this body. So the body is lying there, and why you are crying, "My father has gone away"? Any intelligent man can understand that the real father, within the body, was a different thing. — [[spoken/1972/721122bg.hyd|Bhagavad-gītā 2.17, Hyderabad, 1972]] --- ### Wanting to Become Enjoyer > God is puruṣa and this material nature is meant for His enjoyment, but when we forget that Kṛṣṇa is the enjoyer and when I wish to enjoy—that very tendency is called māyā. Such is the cycle of māyā. That which I am not, and artificially we are trying to do. That is called māyā. We are not enjoyers, bhoktā, because it is God's property this prakṛti bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ. The living being is trying to become the puruṣa, enjoyer. Everyone is trying to be puruṣa, but he cannot become puruṣa. He's prakṛti. He's enjoyed. — [[spoken/1972/720114le.jai|Lecture, Jaipur, 1972]] --- ### Claiming God's Property > As soon as the time factor is finished, my body's finished. So I have got this body, say, for seventy-six years ago, and say after ten years or five years, it will be finished. So before my body was created, the world was there, and when my body will be finished, the world will remain there. Then how can I claim that this world belongs to me? This is called illusion. This is called ignorance, mūḍha. Mūḍha means one does not know to whom the property belongs, but foolishly he's claiming that "It is my property." — [[spoken/1972/721122bg.hyd|Bhagavad-gītā 2.17, Hyderabad, 1972]] --- *10 quotes from Śrīla Prabhupāda on false ego and bodily identification* [[wiki/quotes|Back to Quotes]]