Ahamkaar
boundary/ self identity

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One of the earliest tattvas of Prakriti, Ahamkaar is the bounding factor that allows matter to exist. It is a sense of self identity, of knowing where an entity, animate or inanimate, ends and another begins.

Ahamkaar gets a bad rap, as ego or pride, and is generally seen as a negative quality one should wipe out; this is usually when it is in excess. But without Ahamkaar, which in its broadest sense means boundary, the material world could not exist.

Ahamkaar is the second evolute to arise from the union of Purusha and Prakriti, according to Samkhya, which is the theoretical basis of yoga. The first tattva (evolute) is Mahat, or the cosmic intelligence. This higher order intelligence, in all its wisdom, decided that the first concept in creation should be boundaries. And thus Ahamkaar is the second.

Ahamkaar is like the lines drawn in the sand, as in the picture, that create the illusion of separateness. While these lines in the sand are very real, and allow for individual piles of rocks to mark out their own existential space, at the meta level, both the rocks and the sand come from the same source.

Ahamkaar creates the separation, which all forms of yoga are dedicated to overcoming, seeing beyond, learning to transcend. It is the wall we need to scale in order to look beyond our individual material separatedness and unite with the infinite.

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