Dehābhimāna
Dehābhimāna · deha-abhimāna, “identification with the body”
Grammar: masculine noun; a compound of deha (the body) and abhimāna (the sense of self, identification, pride): “identification with the body”.
Meaning: identification with the body: the false idea “the body is I” and “these are mine”, born of ajñāna, which binds the jīva to saṃsāra; it is cut by viveka, discrimination, and by bhakti.
In the scriptures: Bhagavān Kapila‘s teaching to Devahūti on the downward course of the jīvas who hold to the body is headed “Describing the downward course of jīvas who hold to the body” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 30). He tells how the jīva, pushed out at birth, loses the memory of his past births; falling on the ground in blood and urine, he wriggles like a worm, and since his knowledge is lost he takes on dehābhimāna, which is opposed to knowledge, and sobs and sobs. The undiscerning jīva holds “I” and “mine” in the body born of the five bhūtas; seeing the gross body and holding the sense “this is I” in it is its birth. So the sādhaka, discerning the eternal from the passing, with vairāgya, should give up dehābhimāna and move in this world (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 31). Even Brahmā and the ṛshis who reached saguṇa Brahma return at a new creation, by the remnant of the vision of difference, dehābhimāna and doership (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 32).
Nārada teaches King Prācīnabarhi that in sleep, swoon, intense grief, the time of death and high fever a person has no deha-abhimāna, not because ajñāna is gone but because the senses are disturbed. As the moon on amāvāsyā is present but not seen, so in the womb and in childhood deha-abhimāna is not manifest, because the liṅga-śarīra of eleven senses has not yet blossomed; in youth it is fully manifest. Maitreya ends the teaching with its phala: by it, for the sādhaka, the deha-abhimāna that comes from identity with the buddhi is destroyed, and jīvanmukti comes (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 29).
When Śrī Kṛshṇa‘s flute called on the rāsa night, some gopīs could not come out of their houses; closing their eyes, they meditated on him alone. The heat of separation washed them clean; in dhyāna they attained his embrace and great bliss, and their puṇya-vāsanās were exhausted. At once their bondage of karma was destroyed, and they gave up the body of the three guṇas, which the text glosses as dehābhimāna (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 29).
Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava: “Serving the guru, with one-pointed bhakti in me, sharpen the axe of discriminating knowledge; with it cut the upādhi of the jīva, which is dehābhimāna, merge in the Paramātmā, and then give up the sādhana itself” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 12). The sādhaka must know that ahaṅkāra, glossed as dehābhimāna, is the bondage that spoils the goal of life. When going for bhikshā there may be some dehābhimāna in the jñānī; but that body, whose pride he has given up, cannot delude him that it is the ātmā, and it stays in his memory only as a saṃskāra until it falls (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 13).
Related terms: Deha · Abhimāna · Ahaṅkāra · Mamakāra · Liṅga-śarīra · Viveka
Sources
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapters 30–32; Skandha 4, Chapter 29; Skandha 10, Chapter 29; Skandha 11, Chapters 12–13