False ego—the conception that "I am this material body, mind or intelligence."; False ego In Sanskrit, it is termed ahaṅkāra. 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 tāmasa-buddhi, intelligence in ignorance. This occurs when the original consciousness of the spirit soul comes into contact with the mahad-brahman, the unmanifest prakṛti. From out of tāmasa-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 ahaṅkāra 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 Kṛṣṇa. In the Eleventh Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Kṛṣṇa 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 Kṛṣṇa 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.