Haumai is usually translated as ego and the word is built from hau and mai, I and me, doubled. It is the condition of taking oneself as the centre.
In the Guru Granth Sahib Ji it is the principal obstacle, more than desire or ignorance. The line that it is a chronic disease and also carries its own cure is among the most quoted in the volume.
The remedy given is hukam, accepting the order of things, and naam, remembrance, and the two are described as the same movement.
The five said to follow from haumai are kaam, krodh, lobh, moh and ahankar: desire, anger, greed, attachment and pride. They are named constantly in Punjabi speech and in sermons and most Punjabis can list them.
It is a psychological rather than a moral scheme. The problem identified is not wrongdoing but a mistake about where the self is.
The word is usually rendered as ego and it is closer to the assertion of a separate I. The Japji treats it as the thing that produces the cycle rather than as a moral fault.
The line most often quoted says that in haumai a person comes and goes, and that the disease and the cure are in the same place.
It is the diagnostic term of the whole tradition. Almost everything else in the teaching is a description of what follows from it or of what removes it.