What is True Personaliuty...........?

THERE IS NO PERSONALITY. Personality as such is false. The word 'personality' has to be understood. It comes from 'persona'; persona means a mask. In ancient Greek drama the actors used to wear masks; those masks were called persona -- persona because the sound was coming from behind the mask. 'Sona' means sound. The masks were apparent to the audience and from behind the mask the sound was coming. From that word 'persona' has come the word 'personality'.All personality is false. Good personality, bad personality, the personality of a sinner and the personality of a saint -- all are false. You can wear a beautiful mask or an ugly mask, it doesn't make any difference.The real thing is your essence. But the question is relevant. If essence is the real thing, as I say, then Maniloff asks:PRIMITIVE PEOPLES LIVE IN THE ESSENCE STATE JUST LIKE ANIMALS. THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL BUT NOT ENLIGHTENED.It is true -- they cannot be enlightened. For them to become enlightened, first they will have to create a personality. Enlightenment is dropping of the personality; they don't have any personality to drop. You will feel a little puzzled: Why can't one become enlightened when one has no personality?Personality is also a necessary part of growth. It is like if you catch hold of a fish in the sea and you throw it on the shore; the fish jumps back into the sea. Now for the first time it will know that it has always lived in the sea; for the first time it will know that "The sea is my life." Up to now, before it was caught and thrown on the shore, it may not have ever thought of the sea at all; it may have been utterly oblivious of the sea. To know something, first you have to lose it.To be aware of paradise, first you have to lose it. Unless it is lost AND regained you will not understand the beauty of it.Adam and Eve had to lose the Garden of Eden; that is part of natural growth. Only Adam leaving the beautiful Garden of God can become a Christ one day -- he can come back. Adam leaving Eden is just like the fish being caught and thrown on the shore and Jesus is the fish jumping back into the sea.The primitive people cannot become enlightened. They are beautiful, spontaneous, natural, but utterly unaware of what they are; they don't have any awareness. They live joyously but their joy is unconscious. First they have to lose it. They have to become civilized, educated, knowledgeable; they have to become a culture, a civilization, a religion. They have to lose all their spontaneity, they have to forget all about their essence, and then suddenly one day they start missing it. It is bound to happen.That is happening all over the world, and it is happening in such great measure because this is the first time that humanity has really become civilized.The more civilized a country is, the more is the feeling of meaninglessness. The backward countries still don't have that feeling, they can't have. To have that feeling of inner emptiness, meaninglessness, absurdity, one has to become very civilized.Hence I am all in favor of science, because it helps the fish to be thrown on the shore. And once on the hot shore, in the hot sand, the fish starts feeling thirsty. It had never felt thirsty before. For the first time it misses the ocean around, the coolness, the life-giving waters. It is dying.That is the situation of the civilized man, the educated man: he is dying. Great inquiry is born. One wants to know what should be done, how one can enter into the ocean of life again.In the backward countries, for example in India, there is no such feeling of meaninglessness. Even though a few Indian intellectuals write about it, their writing has no depth because it does not correspond to the situation of the Indian mind. A few Indian intellectuals write about meaninglessness, absurdity, almost in the same way as Soren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jaspers, Heidegger.... They have read about these people or they may have visited the West, and they start talking about meaninglessness, nausea, absurdity, but it sounds phony.I have talked to Indian intellectuals -- they sound very phony because it is NOT their OWN feeling; it is borrowed. It is Soren Kierkegaard speaking through them, it is Friedrich Nietzsche speaking through them; it is not their own voice. They are not really aware of what Soren Kierkegaard is saying; they have not suffered the same anguish. The feeling is alien, foreign; they have learnt it like parrots. They talk about it, but their whole life says and shows something else. What they say and what their life shows are diametrically opposite.It is very very rare that any Indian intellectual ever commits suicide -- I have not heard of it -- but many Western intellectuals HAVE committed suicide. It is very rare to come across an Indian intellectual who goes mad; it is a very common phenomenon in the West, many intellectuals have gone mad. The real intellectuals have almost inevitably gone mad; it is their life experience.The civilization all around, the over-developed personality, have become an imprisonment. They are being killed by it. The very weight of civilization is too much and unbearable. They are feeling suffocated, they can't breathe. Even suicide seems to be a liberation, or if they cannot commit suicide then madness seems to be an escape. At least by becoming mad one forgets all about civilization, one forgets all about the nonsense that goes on in the name of civilization. Madness is an escape from civilization.Do you know that primitive people don't go mad? It is only the civilized man's privilege. Primitive people don't commit suicide; again it is the civilized man's privilege.But to feel that life is utterly meaningless is to be on a crossroads: either you choose suicide or you choose sannyas; either you choose madness or you choose meditation. It is a great turning-point!Maniloff, ALL personality is false. There is an essence inside which is not false, which you bring with your birth, which has always been there.Somebody asks Jesus: "Do you know anything about Abraham?" And Jesus says, "Before Abraham ever was, I am."Now what an absurd statement, but also of tremendous significance. Abraham and Jesus -- there is a big gap between them; Abraham preceded Jesus by almost three thousand years. And Jesus says, "Before Abraham ever was, I am." He is talking about the essence. He is not talking about Jesus, he is talking about the Christ. He is talking about the eternal. He is not talking about the personal, he is talking about the universal.The Zen people say that unless you come to know your original face that you had before your father was ever born, you will not become enlightened. What is this original face? Even before your father was born you had it, and you will have it again when you have died and your body has been burnt and nothing is left except ashes -- then you will have it again.What is this original face? The essence -- call it the soul, the spirit, the self. These are words signifying the same thing. You are born as an essence, but if you are left as an essence without the society creating a personality for you, you will remain animal-like. It has happened to some people.Just six months ago, again one child was found somewhere in North India near the Himalayas, a child of eleven years who had been brought up by wolves, a wolf-child -- a human child brought up by wolves. Of course wolves can only give the personality of a wolf; so the child was human, the essence was there, but he had the personality of a wolf.Many times it has happened. Wolves seem to be capable of bringing up human children; they seem to have a certain love, compassion, for human children. But these children are not enlightened. They don't have any of the corruption that human society is bound to give; their beings are not polluted, they are pure essence. They are like the fish in the ocean -- they don't know who they are. And it is very difficult once they have been brought up by animals to give them a human personality; it is too hard a job.Almost all the children have died in that effort. They cannot learn human ways, it is too late now. Their mold is cast; they have already become fixed personalities. They have learnt how to be wolves. They run like wolves on all fours and they are strong like wolves. You cannot fight with a wolf-child; he will kill you, he will eat you raw. They are cannibals! They don't know any morality, they don't know any religion. They are not Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan. They don't bother about God -- they have never heard of him. All that they know is the life of a wolf.If human personality is a barrier, it is a barrier only if you cling to it. It has to be passed through: it is a ladder, it is a bridge. One should not make one's house on the bridge, true, but one has to pass over the bridge.Human personality is partial. In a better society we will give children personalities but also the capacity to get rid of them. That is what is missing right now: we give them personalities, too tight personalities, so that they become encapsulated, imprisoned, and we never give them a way to get rid of them. It is like giving a child steel clothes and not giving him any idea of how to unlock, how to throw the clothes, one day when he is becoming bigger.What we are doing with human beings is exactly what was done in ancient China with the feet of women. From the very childhood girls were given iron shoes so that their feet never grew, they remained very small. Small feet were loved very much, they were appreciated very much. Only aristocratic families could afford them, because it was almost impossible for the woman to do anything. The woman could not even walk rightly; the feet were too small and the body was big. The feet were crippled; she had to walk with a support. Now a poor woman could not afford it, so small feet was the symbol of the aristocracy.We can laugh at it, but we go on doing the same thing. Now in the West women are walking on such absurd shoes, such high heels! It is okay if you do such a thing in a circus, but such high heels are not for walking. But they are appreciated, because when a woman walks on very high heels she becomes more sexually attractive: her buttocks stand out more prominently. And because walking is difficult, her buttocks move more than they would do ordinarily. But this is accepted, then it is okay. Other societies will laugh at it!All over the world women are using bras and they think that it is very conventional and traditional. My sannyasins are not using bras, and that is one of the greatest criticisms against them from the Hindus. In fact the bra makes the woman look more sexual; it is just to give her body a shape that she has not got. It is to help her so that the breasts can stand out and can look very young, not sagging. And these Hindu women think they are being very religious and orthodox. They are simply befooling themselves and nobody else -- the bra is a sexual symbol.Just like the bra, there are societies in Africa, a few primitive societies, which use strange things. Lips are made bigger and thicker. From the very childhood weights are hung on the lips so that they become very thick, big. That is a symbol of a very sexual woman -- thicker and bigger lips can of course give a better kiss!In some primitive societies the man even used to wear a certain sheath on his genital organs to make them look bigger, just as women are using bras. Now we laugh at such foolish people, but it is the SAME story. Even the younger people all over the world are using very tight pants -- that is just to show their genitals. But once a thing is accepted, nobody takes any note of it.Civilization should not become a tight enclosure. It is absolutely necessary that you should have a personality, but you should have a personality which can be put on and off easily, just like loose garments, not made of steel. Just cotton will do, so that you can put them off and on; you need not continuously wear them.That's what I call a man of understanding: he who lives in his essence, but as far as the society is concerned he moves with a personality. He uses the personality; he is the master of his own being.The society needs a certain personality. If you bring your essence into the society you will be creating trouble for yourself and for others. People will not understand your essence; your truth may be too bitter for them, your truth may be too disturbing for them. There is no need! You need not go naked in the society; you can wear clothes.But I have heard about a nun who used to take her bath with clothes on. When other nuns came to hear about it they asked, "What nonsense! Why can't you undress in your bathroom? There is nobody looking."She said, "No, but the Bible says God is watching everywhere." So the nun cannot even undress in the bathroom because God is watching -- as if God is a peeping Tom! And if God can watch even behind locked doors, can't he watch inside your clothes? He can watch there too! If walls cannot prevent him, just your garments, how can they prevent him?One should be able to be naked in one's own house, playing with one's children; sipping tea on a summer morning in the garden, on the lawn, one should be able to be naked. There is no need to go to your office naked -- there is no need! Clothes are perfectly good; there is no necessity to expose yourself to each and everybody. That will be exhibitionism, that will be another extreme. One extreme is that people cannot even go to bed without clothes on; another extreme is that there are Jaina DIGAMBARA monks moving naked in the marketplace, or naked Hindu SADHUS. And strange is the thing: that these Jainas and these Hindus, they object to MY people because they are not wearing proper clothes.Now, in a hot country like India people coming from the West find it really difficult to wear too many clothes. It looks so absurd to the Western seeker who comes here to see Indians with ties and coats. It looks so absurd! It is okay in the West -- it is too cold and the tie is protective -- but in India it is an effort to commit suicide. In the West it is okay to have your shoes and socks on, but in India? But imitative people! They are moving the whole day with shoes and socks on in a hot country like India. The Western dress in India is not relevant -- tight pants and coat and tie and hat -- it simply makes you look ridiculous. India needs loose garments. But there is no need to go to the other extreme, that you start running naked, bicycling naked into the marketplace. It will unnecessarily create trouble for you and for others.But the strange thing is that the people who have always worshipped naked SADHUS and have never raised any problem, for them I am creating a trouble. For them I look as if I am a dangerous person because my sannyasins are not wearing proper clothes.One should be natural, and by being natural I mean one should be capable of putting on the personality when needed, in society. It functions like a lubricant, it helps, because there are thousands of people. Lubricants are needed, otherwise people will be constantly in conflict, clashing against each other. Lubricants help; they keep your life smooth.Personality is good when you are communicating with others, but personality is a barrier when you start communing with yourself. Personality is good when you are relating with human beings; personality is a barrier when you start relating with existence itself, with God.Maniloff, to me there are only two things: the essence and the personality. The personality is good as a means, the essence is the end. And personalities are not real and unreal.You ask: WHY ARE NOT THE PRIMITIVE PEOPLE ENLIGHTENED?They are not enlightened because they don't have any personalities yet. Unless you have a personality you cannot drop it. Unless you have a properly developed mind you cannot enter into the state of no-mind. Unless you have an ego, well-formed, mature, you cannot surrender.These things look like puzzles but they are not. If you just contemplate over these things, they are very simple to understand. What do you have to surrender if you don't have any ego? Hence, first the ego has to be developed. But the ego should be developed and side by side another thing has to be developed: the capacity to drop the ego. Man has to learn this paradox so when the need arises you can drop the ego. Then you are always the master, and the mastery is always of the essence. But if you don't have any personality you will not be the master, because you don't have any slave to be a master of. The essence and personality are both needed, then the essence can be the master.It is not so ordinarily: the personality becomes the master and essence is either completely reduced to a slave or completely forgotten and thrown into the basement of your unconsciousness. The education is faulty.MY vision of a right education is to teach people how to grow the ego and how to be able to drop it; how to become great minds and yet be ready any moment to put the mind aside. You should be able to just put your personality, your ego, your mind, on and off, because these are good things if you can use them. But you should know the mechanism, how to put them off. Right now you know only how to put them on.I am reminded:Sigmund Freud somewhere remembers that a friend came to visit him from a very very faraway village. They had studied together in primary school; since then they had not met. Electricity had just then come; just a few months before, electricity had come to Vienna where Sigmund Freud lived. He forgot to tell the friend how to put off the light in the night and the friend was almost going mad in the night because he could not sleep -- the light was too much. And he tried every possible way that he could conceive to blow it out.He even stood on a table and studied the lamp, how to blow it out. But you can't blow it out! He tried every possible way. He could not sleep the whole night and because of his ego he could not wake Sigmund Freud and ask him what to do with this light. All that he knew about was kerosene lamps. But an electric bulb functions in a different way; it is not a kerosene lamp.In the morning Freud asked, "You look tired, your eyes are red. What happened? Couldn't you sleep?"And the man confessed. He said, "No, I could not sleep, and now I have to tell you. I wanted not to tell you because I wanted not to appear so stupid that I don't know how to put off the light, but I tried my best. The whole night I tried to figure it out, how to put it off, but I could not."Freud took him in the room. He said, "It is very simple: this is the button" -- the button was behind the door so he could not see it; even if he had seen it he would not have thought that the button had any connection with the light -- "you just put it on and off with the button."Our situation is like that: our society puts on the ego, the personality, and nobody ever teaches us how to put it off. So day in, day out, we are burdened by it, tortured by it, goaded by it. We become slaves of something false.I don't want you to drop your personality forever; I simply want you to be capable of putting it off when it is not needed. This is the whole art of real religion: to teach you how to put the mind off and how to put it on.Talking to you, I have to put my mind on, otherwise how can I talk? The heart cannot talk, the being cannot talk, the essence knows no language. I have to use the personality. But the moment I have said, "Enough for today," you may not know but that is how I put it off. I tell you the secret! It is not to you that I am saying enough for today; I am saying to my own mind, "Enough for today. Now go to sleep."You also say, Maniloff: I HEAR YOU TELL US TO ACCEPT THE ANIMAL THAT WE ARE, RETURN TO ESSENCE. I HAVE READ GURDJIEFF SAYING YOU MUST BECOME YOUR TRUE SELF -- THE MASTER. HE SAID BEWARE OF BEING SWALLOWED BY THE ANIMAL.He is right! -- beware of being swallowed by the animal. But why not swallow the animal yourself? Otherwise you will have to be constantly alert and aware and on guard, because the animal will be there. And the animal is the animal: if the animal finds you off guard, it will jump upon you.So I don't say only beware of the animal and go on persuading the animal, as Gurdjieff says. You say that he says:"GIVE IT SOME CIGARETTES OR ICE CREAM AND IT WILL BE CALMED. "It is not so easy! It will not be calmed by SOME ice cream -- it will ask for more. It always asks for more. It will not be calmed by SOME cigarettes; it will go on asking for more. And it is not only a question of cigarettes and ice cream, otherwise the problem would not have been very complex.It asks for money, it asks for power; it wants to be the president of the country, the prime minister of the country. The animal has strange ideas to be fulfilled! It wants all the women of the world; it can't be satisfied with one. The animal is mad, the animal is insane! The animal is simply animal; it has no understanding -- you cannot expect understanding from it. Don't believe that it will be calmed just by giving it some cigarettes and ice cream -- don't be so simplistic. It will go on demanding new things and more things, and there is no end to its demanding. If you try to persuade it in this way you will never be able to persuade it.Why not swallow the animal yourself? Eat it and be finished with it! That's my idea. Why not make ice cream out of the animal? Why not make cigars out of it and smoke it and be finished with it?That's why I say don't repress -- because if you repress, the animal is there. I say go deep into the very spirit of the animal. Enjoy it! That's what I mean when I say eat it. Be capable of digesting it and you will be more mighty by digesting it. Your sex digested will release so much energy that you can attain to superconsciousness. Hence I say 'from sex to superconsciousness'. Your greed digested will become your love.You will be surprised to know that the English word 'love' comes from a Sanskrit word LOBHA; LOBHA means greed. It may have been just a coincidence that the English word 'love' grew out of LOBHA; LOBHA means greed. But my feeling is it cannot be just coincidence; there may be something more mysterious behind it, there may be some alchemical reason behind it. In fact greed digested becomes love. It is greed, LOBHA, digested well, which becomes love.Love is sharing; greed is hoarding. Greed only wants and never gives, and love knows only giving and never asks for anything in return; it is unconditional sharing. There may be some alchemical reason that LOBHA has become 'love' in the English language. LOBHA becomes love as far as inner alchemy is concerned.Swallow the animal! That is the way to transform it. That is the way to transmute lower energies into higher energies.You are given a great opportunity. You have been thrown out of the sea -- this is the opportunity; expelled from the Garden of Eden -- this is the opportunity. Adam can become Christ if he uses the opportunity well. Use the opportunity: eat the animal, digest the animal. Don't try to cut it off, otherwise you will become poorer. Don't try to destroy it as your so-.called saints have been doing down the ages, otherwise you will be dull and dead, insipid. Don't repress it, otherwise it will take revenge -- the animal is animal. One day it will jump upon you with such vengeance that you will be destroyed by it.And don't try to persuade it because it cannot be persuaded. Its demands are infinite, its thirst cannot be quenched by anything. Give it anything and it immediately asks for something more. The 'more' is its very way of living.So don't be fool yourself that cigarettes and ice cream and things like that will help the animal to subside and to be calmed. No, you will need great insight into the animal, you will need great acquaintance with the animal. You will need very deep awareness of the working of the animal. And you will have to digest it slowly slowly, gradually, so that one day the animal becomes part of your being.The animal has great energy, that's why it is called animal. 'Anima' means aliveness, power, vitality; 'animal' means one who is vital. The saints cut their roots from the animal; they became non-vital. That's why they have not been able to transform the whole world -- they were not even able to transform their own selves. They became impotent. Rather than becoming more potent, rather than becoming omnipotent, they became impotent. Hence I am not for suppression.I am for understanding, I am for transformation. And if the animal is transformed and absorbed by the essence, you will feel great power, great fire. Your life will become such a passionate affair with existence, you will have such intensity, that each moment will give you the joy of an eternity.

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