Cover Story

Perfecting The Personality - Swami Rama

Everyone is eager to know more about the path of spirituality. You long to know more, but there is actually a barrier that you create for yourselves, and that barrier is practice. You do not practice what you already know. You really do not need to know many things, but you definitely need to practice what you know. It is a sad thing to tell you, but I have not really learned anything new since I grew up; that which I learned in my childhood is what I have been practicing.

It is the same with most of you: The basic knowledge that is imparted by your parents, schools, and universities still remain unpracticed. You do not practice what you know, but you should begin to do that, so that your personality can be modified and developed.

As we discussed earlier, the word "personality" comes from its Greek root, persona, or mask. The Greeks used many masks in their theater. You all have and wear many masks. But who made those masks for you? They were not created by your society, culture, religion or Providence – you chose them. You are what you are; this is your choice. You wanted to be the way you are and that is how you have created yourself, so you should not blame others for your personality or its conflicts.

Plato and other Western philosophers also held the principle that you are your own creation, rather than the result of what God or Providence wants you to be. When you suffer, you sometimes think that your suffering is due to God, but that is a poor philosophy, because God never wants anyone to suffer. God is a symbol of love, the highest principle. Why would God be interested in creating suffering? Rather, it is your own actions that make you suffer. Your actions can be divided into three classes: Past, present, and future.

To understand these three types of actions, imagine someone carrying a quiver of arrows on his shoulder. There is one set of arrows that he has already sent toward the target – they are the actions of the past. Those arrows that he is holding in his hands are the present actions, and those arrows still in his quiver are the future actions. Perhaps you are not happy with some event from your past; perhaps you expected too much of yourself. Then you condemn yourself by thinking that you have not done enough, and you constantly repeat the thought that your past actions were not healthy or good. Thus, you have created a habit of condemning yourself, which creates negativity in your mind. But the present and future actions are still completely in your hands, and that is where you should focus your mind.

You have the power to change the destiny of your life. You have the power to change your personality. You have the power to mold the entire stream of your life, to give a new direction to your life. There is one difficulty in doing this, however, and that is your habit patterns. Your personality is a particular character, woven by your habit patterns, but how are your habits themselves formed? As we said earlier, habits are formed because you have repeated some action or thought again and again. Thus, it becomes a habit. Then, you unconsciously do it; eventually, it is a full-fledged habit. When you understand that all your habits are formed by simple process of repeating some action or thought again and again, then you can learn another process, that of undoing and changing your habits.

I often find that in the schools and colleges, the children are taught in a very harsh and critical way. That is why they do not make much improvement in their lives: They become victims of the sole process of learning how to remember things. They do not learn the technique of how to forget things. They only know how to learn; they do not know how to "unlearn." Because you do not know how to forget and unlearn, when you want to go to bed, to retire and relax your mind, you cannot really do this. You have not learned how to unlearn negative or disturbing things that you have learned. That creates serious problems all over the world, both in the West and the East, especially in the younger generation. Many things are constantly going on in your mind; your mind is thinking and thinking, and you cannot gain freedom from that process.

You suffer on account of many serious diseases that your mind creates, such as cancer, because you have not learned the method of unlearning, of how to be free when you want to be free. When you want to rest, you cannot; you are still thinking. That wall which stands between you and the Reality is your mind. All your training is applied to the mind, culturing and cultivating the mind. Books can tell you many things, but when you study your own mind, you may discover that today you are at peace, and feel that you have conquered your mind, but tomorrow you suddenly lose your temper. Perhaps you say something that is not to be said, or do something that should not be done. You constantly act like this, and you do not know from where in you this behavior is coming.

In human relationships, the most destructive of all weaknesses is the weakness of blaming others, as when you think, "I am suffering because of you," or "I am unhappy because of you." You often blame others, just as you expect that others are going to make you happy. But no one has the capacity to make you happy. No one else has the capacity to make you blissful. Your mind is your own mind; it is your own samskaras that make you happy or unhappy.

To understand your samskaras, the impressions stored in the unconscious mind, you have to understand something about the mind/body relationship. If you glance at me, and then a few minutes later you look at me again, you will recognize me. This means that your optic nerve conducted an impression of me to your mind, where it was stored, and when you recall me again, this impression came forward.

Samskaras are the strong seeds that you have sown in various levels of your unconscious mind by your experiences and thoughts. They do not last for the duration of this lifetime alone. According to this teaching, if you believe in it, they lead to the next birth. They are not related only to this lifetime; they are very powerful motivations and affect the way you function, the way you think, feel, and even the things you desire. All these are due to your samskaras. Samskaras are the "seed memories" of your previous actions, which you have stored in the reservoir within yourself. Sometimes a time comes in your life when you feel helpless and at the mercy of your samskaras because you do not work with yourself, you do not sincerely do your practice, you do not improve yourself, and you do not really want to change your personality. That is why this feeling of helplessness occurs.

Let us first describe how samskaras affect you. The body is related to the mind. They are related to each other with the help of a force called prana, which is carried on the breath, the link between body and mind. As long as you are inhaling and exhaling, you live. When this process does not function, death occurs. The mind has two aspects, a conscious aspect and an unconscious aspect. The conscious part of the mind is only a small part of the totality of mind. It is the conscious aspect of mind that you have been training through your educational system. At the same time, you also pour into the unconscious mind all the experiences you have. When the experience we call "death" occurs, body, breath, and conscious mind fail, and they separate from the unconscious mind and from that higher unit called the Center of Consciousness.

Thus, down deep within you is a basement, in which you have stored all the seeds of your samskaras. The bubbles or impressions that disturb your behavior and your normal thinking process are still present there. Even if your wife, children, and friends tell you not to worry, you cannot stop it. No one wants you to worry, but you do it because of your learned habit patterns.

You can gain freedom from such a thinking process, which distorts and gives an entirely different sort of direction to your life, by understanding how to train yourself and then going in a different direction. However, you must really want to do this. That inner method of self-change is not taught in the external world. This internal method you will have to discover for yourself, by understanding a method called "journeying within". Journeying within tells you how to go inside.

Sometimes you think that nothing could be more powerful than what you consider "positive" in the external world. And yet even the object of your love has less power than your object of negativity. It is amazing to see how negativity controls your mind: You love those objects of negativity even more than the objects of love and positivity – that is why you think of them again and again. Something negative controls your life, and so the negative side of your life becomes more powerful than the positive side. You did not work with your own negative thought process, and now you are unhappy. However, you can gain conscious control over yourself by making an effort – using your human effort. A human being has the power to make an effort: He can change his personality and utilize the immense wealth, power, and brilliance buried within himself. Once you learn to go to the inner chamber of your being, you can do that. If you learn first how to decide to change, and then how to determine within that you will not repeat something negative, you can change yourself.

Perhaps you have a very bad temper, you get angry and your anger is not controlled anger. You have not learned to discipline yourself and this is very injurious to you. You first have to analyze that anger: Why do you get so angry with someone that your speech is distorted and you act very differently. At that time you feel different: You forget yourself, your duties, and your relationships, and you lose your temper and say things that are damaging and injurious. If you analyze this process, you will find that in the samskaras that you have deposited in the unconscious mind, there are many desires that have not been fulfilled. Perhaps you want to be respected by someone. If this desire exists in you, it will hurt you so much that it will not allow you to be at peace. You may think, "My partner doesn’t respect me." Then, you waste your time and energy in such an expectation, with the hope that others will respect you and love you. In this way, you become totaly dependent on others to fulfill your expectations. You do nothing for yourself but expect things from others, which is not a good thing to experience. But others have no capacity to fulfill your expectations; these are your expectations. The mother of all problems and conflicts lies within you, and that is expecting things from others.

Once, a journalist asked Mahatma Gandhi how to attain happiness. Gandhi answered, "When you don’t have any desires, then you will be happy." Normally, you think, "When I attain God, then I will be happy," but to be practical, you have to recognize that when you don’t have any desires, it means that you have fulfilled all your desires, and then you are happy. But you should also develop a sense of discrimination and understanding about what desires are right or helpful for you to pursue. You should entertain only those desires that you can fulfill and that are right for you. If you have developed that capacity to discriminate between your desires, then you don’t entertain those desires that are injurious to you and drive you crazy or create a state of helplessness. Unfulfilled desires within you will always lead to a state of unhappiness.

You should have some desires as a human being; you cannot live totaly without desires. But those desires should be filtered by the sense of discrimination within you. Your "buddhi", intelligence, has the function of judging, deciding, and discriminating which desires are useful. You should learn to develop that function within yourself. Then, decrease your desires. It is the useless desires that create problems for you, not appropriate or helpful desires. For example, the desire to eat food is not itself a problem, but sometimes you eat when you feel stress. When you experience stress, simply examine what that stress is, and consider whether you really need food or sleep or what you actually need. You may realize that your stress is the result of the thought that the person whom you love and who loves you does not respect you. Sometimes, such an intense desire to be respected and loved by others can create an obsession and a crazy state of mind. Expecting too much from others is always a problem. The happiest person is one who has very few expectations. You often question why you should help your partner or your friend if they don’t help you. This sense of expectation, exchange, and bargaining leads you to a state of competition. When you think that way, you can never become creative and dynamic.

First, you need to understand yourself, and understanding yourself means knowing that while the body is subject to change, death, and decay, the soul is not. The soul is immortal. You need to understand your internal states, your mind, and its modifications. You need to observe how your "buddhi" functions, and how your "manas" (lower mind), "ahamkara" (ego), and "chitt" function. Chitta is the storehouse of knowledge and memories. Consider the reasons why others do not think the same way you think; you not only look different from others, but you think differently.

Deep down, you will find that the more selfish you are, the more you suffer in life. The one who suffers the most in life is he who is selfish, because he has not learned to let go; he has not learned to give. If you resist giving, then you won’t ever enjoy life. You only make others suffer, and when you make others suffer, that tendency also leads you to self-suffering. Being selfish is actually hurting yourself; you want to deprive others of things and yet you want to be happy.

When you are selfish, you don’t have consideration for others and you don’t think of them. You think only about yourself – about your sensual joys, your superficial clinging, and your superficial desires. Those do not ever make you happy. During a time of selfishness, you feed someone called the ego. When you feed your ego, then for the sake of the ego you continually do many things without understanding the consequences. You may pray, but you are praying only to your ego. You are thinking, you are doing business, and you are talking to others according to the way your ego directs – you are behaving according to your ego’s needs. Then, you do not improve and grow; you cannot improve because you are only feeding your ego. The ego is that which has separated you from the whole, and that is why you are miserable. The law of expansion is not being expressed when you are selfish, and instead you are fulfilling only the law of contraction.

When you learn to work with yourself gently and gradually, you can change your personality. You can change your whole being if you really want to, because you can change your masks. Those masks that you wear have been chosen and made by you, but you can change them and make your personality a pleasant one. Work with your samskaras: If you make a sincere human effort, you will learn that all your actions do, indeed, give you their fruits. There is no such thing as an action that does not give a fruit. This is a scientific law: Every action has its reaction. No one can overturn this law. When you make a sincere human effort, you sometimes feel that you are not improving, but that is not possible. If you do not see progress, then it may be that you are not making an effort truthfully, with full determination, and with all your might. The moment you start to do that, you will find that there is a dynamic change in your thinking, behavior, and in your writing. Do an experiment in this manner for even just a day or two: Use that great power that is your inherent power – the power called love. Learn to express yourself in such a way that you don’t hurt, injure, or harm others.

Yoga science explains profoundly the true meaning of love. In the set of personal commitments that you make, the yamas and niyamas, yoga science advises you to practice ahimsa. Ahmisa means non-injuring, non-harming or non-violence. To practice ahimsa means not to harm, hurt or injure those with whom you live. Often you hurt others merely for the sake of your own selfish ego. If you learn to practice ahimsa, then you are practicing love. To practice ahimsa means practicing love in your daily life, and the practice of love does not mean being selfish. Consider how many times a day you have a desire to give the wealth and bounty you have to others, even to those with whom you are related. The ability to give to outsiders develops later on. Ahimsa should be practiced first, with those close to you and truth is practiced later; truth will follow by itself.

When you have learned to enjoy giving, a time will come when you can give without any reservation. Giving the fruits of your actions to others, whether known or unknown to you, is a different process. But, first, you have to learn to give at home or wherever you live – with your friends, your relatives, and those to whom you are closely related – your wife, husband, and children. Do not give up and tell yourself that this is just the way you are, and that you cannot change.

Part II will be published in the next issue.

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