False ego-the conception that "I am this material body, mind or intelligence."; False ego In Sanskrit, it is termed ahahkara. False ego is a soul's wrong identification with matter in two ways: I (as, for instance, I am this body) and mine (this land is mine). The primal stage of the false ego is tamasa-buddhi, intelligence in ignorance. This occurs when the original consciousness of the spirit soul comes into contact with the mahad-brahman, the unmanifest prakrti. From out of tamasa-buddhi, the three modes make their appearance. These take shape as the mind (mode of goodness), the senses (mode of passion) and the sense objects (mode of ignorance). The ahahkara identifies the self with these, according to the predominance of one mode over another (the three modes constantly compete with one another to control the living entity). Thus a person in goodness identifies with the mind. A person in passion identifies with the senses. A person in ignorance identifies with the sense objects. But all these are the result of the intelligence being absorbed in primal ignorance: ignorance of Krsna. In the Eleventh Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam, Krsna says to Uddhava that the false ego is cid-acin-mayaḥ, that which encompasses both spirit and matter, because it binds the cid (conscious soul) to the acid (unconscious matter). The cultivation of the innate goodness of the mind is the essence of the Vedic method of yoga, summarized by Krsna as follows. The mind can be controlled when it is fixed on the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Having achieved a stable situation, the mind becomes free from polluted desires to execute material activities; thus as the mode of goodness increases in strength, one can completely give up the modes of passion and ignorance, and gradually one transcends even the material mode of goodness. When the mind is freed from the fuel of the modes of nature, the fire of material existence is extinguished. Then one achieves the transcendental platform of direct relationship with the object of his meditation, the Supreme Lord. (SB 11.9.12) See Buddhi, Consciousness, Intellect, Mind, Modes of nature, Soul, Subtle body, Supersoul. Four Vaisnava Sampradayas and Siddhantas-There are four Vaisnava schools (sampradayas) of Vedanta. These are 1) the Sri Sampradaya, whose acarya is Ramanuja; 2) the Brahma Sampradaya, whose acarya is Madhva; 3) the Rudra Sampradaya, whose acarya is Visnusvami, and 4) the Kumara Sampradaya, whose acarya is Nimbarka. Opposed to these is the non-Vaisnava Vedantist school of Sahkaracarya. Every Vedantist school is known for its siddhanta or essential conclusion about the relationships between God and the soul, the soul and matter, matter and matter, matter and God, and the soul and souls. Sahkaracarya's siddhanta is Advaita, nondifference (i.e. everything is one, therefore these five relationships are unreal). All the other siddhantas support the reality of these relationships from various points of view. Ramanuja's siddhanta is Visistadvaita, qualified nondifference. Ma-dhva's siddhanta is Dvaita, difference. Visnusvami's siddhanta is Suddhadvaita, purified nondifference. And Nimbarka's siddhanta is Dvaita-advaita, difference-and-identity. The Bengali branch of Madhva's sampradaya is known as the Brahma-Madhva-Gauḍiya Sampradaya, or the Caitanya Sampradaya. In the 1700's this school presented Indian philosophers with a commentary on Vedanta-sūtra written by Baladeva Vidyabhūsana that argued yet another siddhanta. It is called acintya-bhedabheda-tattva, which means simultaneous inconceivable oneness and difference. In recent years this siddhanta has become known to people from all over the world due to the popularity of the books of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Acintya-bhedabheda philosophy maintains the same standpoint of difference as Madhva's siddhanta on the five-fold relationship of God to soul, soul to matter, matter to matter, matter to God and soul to soul. But acintya-bhedabheda-tattva further teaches the doctrine of sakti-parinama-vada (the transformation of the Lord's sakti), in which the origin of this five-fold differentiation is traced to the Lord's play with His sakti or energy. Because the souls and matter emanate from the Lord, they are one in Him as His energy yet simultaneously distinct from Him and one another. The oneness and difference of this five-fold relationship is termed acintya or inconceivable because, as Srila Prabhupada writes in his purport to Bg. 18.78, Nothing is different from the Supreme, but the Supreme is always different from everything. As the transcendental origin and coordinator of His energies, God is ever the inconceivable factor. See Advaita, Dvaita, Mayavadi philosophy, Six systems, Vedanta, Vedanta-sūtra.