Asmita (False Identity or Egoism)

Introduction

• Asmita is often described as egoism or false identity. It refers to mistaking the ego for the Self.
• Asmita is referred to in Sutra 2.6, translated by T.K.V. Desikachar as: “False identity results when we regard mental activity as the very source of perception.”
• Rev. Jaganath Carrera uses the metaphor of mistaking ourselves, the driver of a car, with the car.

THE MIND’S FALSE HYPOTHESIS

The second misery is asmita, which means “I am-ness” or the establishment of a sense of self as separate from all else. When you see yourself as separate, the mind goes in search of objects that will satisfy the senses, needing to accumulate all kinds of things in order to prove its own false hypothesis that it is something that is quite unique and separate from everything else. – Richard Freeman 

IF WE, THE DRIVER, IDENTIFIED WITH OUR CAR

Egoism, the firstborn of ignorance, is a case of mistaken identity. It is the confusion of the instrument of seeing, the chitta (individual consciousness) and the sense organs, with awareness itself. As an analogy, think what might happen if we, the driver, identified with the instrument of driving, our car; if we actually thought we were our car. When the car was new, we would believe ourselves to be young and beautiful. And when it aged, becoming a cantankerous unreliable jalopy, we would believe that we were becoming frail and crabby. – Rev. Jaganath Carrera