अहंकार

Ahankara, ego, first appears in the Gita as the name of the mistake that takes action to be one's own. All actions are performed by the modes of nature, but the mind deluded by ego takes it for granted: "I am the doer" (Gita 3.27). In the seventh chapter ego is counted among the eight parts of nature, along with mind and intellect (Gita 7.4). So even this feeling is formed within the same nature that performs the action.

In the eighteenth chapter the picture of its absence is given: one in whom the feeling "I am the doer" is absent, and whose intellect is not stained by the fruit of action, is not bound by action (Gita 18.17).

The usual misreading is that ego means only pride. The Gita's ego goes deeper. It is in "I did all of it" and also in "it is all my fault." In both, the whole result is written in one's own name. So pride in success and the crushing guilt of failure grow from one root.

The remedy is not to crush oneself but to see the five causes and recognise one's own part. This is taken up in Who Is the Doer?, and the claim itself is named doership.