Hello Ernst,
Can you describe how both Mo and Sa both represent the ego? I always felt the Mo was more related to he ego as it relates to the personality of somebody and how it fluctuates so much like peoples moods and so on. (moody moon).
Yet, Sa represents our sense of separation as it is the furthest planet from the Su.
Yet, I've also hear people saying Su can be egoic as well as the Su in one of the self planets.
Can you elaborate on this?
Thanks,
Scott
I've been meaning to ask this about Moon and Saturn as well.
There is a popular conspiracy theory that proposes that both Saturn and the Moon have been hijacked and/or created to give us our limited and false sense of self here on Earth.
S.
And it is a pain to have, and/or be emeshed with someone who has, a Sa-Mo mutual starvation. Maybe what makes this combo so difficult is that they are both ego factors indicating both separateness and need.
THe ego is simply the idea of seperate existence. Its not a fact, its just an idea. That idea is held in the Moon, which is the Manas in which resides the Jeeva - the individual personality, along with Ahamkara, the ego, the idea of separate existence. Saturn is the survival instinct. And of course the idea of needing to survive is based on the idea that one is existing in a state of separation.
I've been giving this a lot of thoughts and that we define what we mean by "ego". In Graha Sutra, Ernst defines it as "the idea of a separate existence" and, in that sense, the Moon fits the bill. Saturn is more about the experiencing of that separate existence. In that sense, Saturn can also represent the ego, or more specifically egocentric behaviors (approaching life with a consciousness of separation).
With that being said, I've recently been more inclined to consider the Sun as the ego and the Moon as the soul. I believe this is more of a Western approach than a Vedic one. Steven Forrest is the one who put it in a way that made me shift: he explains that the life-giving Sun is the center of the solar system. Everything orbits around it. The gravity produced by its enormous mass holds the planets in their tracks. The gravity takes a psychological form when it comes to organizing the qualities of each planet and make them get along together in a core identity, this psychological form is the ego, the focal point of the mind. While, the Moon is the soul of life, without it, all experience would be mechanical, dry. This is what makes us deeply human.
With that being said, I thought "after all, isn't the whole chart about our ego?". Like Ernst wrote in Graha Sutras: "Soul of course is beyond creation, cannot be truly represented by anything in creation, including any graha". Therefore, the question is not about which planet represents the soul or the ego but what are healthy / unhealthy ego manifestations. Each planet has the potential to represent that healthy/unhealthy ego. Mars can fight the wrong battles out of proving something or it can fight as a spiritual warrior, Venus can become indolent and a slave to our 5 senses or it can form healthy emotional bonds, Saturn can become a humanitarian or depressed, etc... And how can we experience our soul through each of these planets?
This is how I view it these days. Still a work in progress 😉
@mona The ego comes and goes, doesn't it? It's not constant, and requires constant referential validation to insure it's existence which as Ernst has said is, "just and idea", which makes associating it with the Sun a little questionable for me. Could the ego be reflecting it's perception of the Sun, looking at itself and seeing something separate where no true separation exists? If so perhaps being able to differentiate between the Jeeva and the ego could clarify. Does the appearance of an individual necessitate ego? When the idea of separate existence is not in operation, what happens to the Jeeva?
@ancestorseyes Lots of questions, sounds like me;) If the Sun is the instinctive knowledge of the soul/spirit, doesn't it have to have an idea of separate existence as well? How can you connect to your soul without your emotions/the Moon who is "lovesick"? The Sun/Moon have to be intrinsically connected. And Sun = soul because Sun is One, shining for everyone, stable, unchanging and Moon = ego defined as "idea of a separate existence", I agree, with Sun and Moon working together.
If you consider the ego as the "personality", which is probably a more modern and psychological approach to the ego, the Sun represents our individuality, the expression of it, and the pulling of all the other planets to form a personality, a center of being. In that context, the Sun can represent the ego. If the Sun is that stable, how can it be influenced by the sign it's in, the planets starving/delighting him? How can it have a high and low expression like any other planet? As soon as we are here, we are in a world of duality, including in how the Sun operates (and all the other planets). The Sun can remember its spirit/inspiration or it can be dysfunctional. So, the soul as the root symbol of the Sun totally works but it doesn't exclude the ego as being part of what the Sun represents as well would be my conclusion. Apologies for my hair-splitting Mars Atmakaraka ????
@mona great points you bring up. It seems like in Ernst's reply there is a delineation between Jeeva and ego. Jeeva is also the living being, basic living being, the ego or Ahamkara is the sense of "I do" or "I am doing" which involves the survival process (Saturn) of the sense of self involvement. Ego seems to be a secondary development in this scenario and not implicate in the mere presence of Jeeva in which it doesn't seem that emotions are excluded necessarily, but when you don't have the sense of "I'm the doer" so many sources for creating emotions don't arise.