The Origins of Personality
What is personality, and how has it been created? In order to answer these questions, we need to go back to our own childhood, and look at the process by which our thoughts have been created. The day we were born, we did not know that we were in the body, nor did we have thoughts, feelings, emotions, attitudes, belief system, behavior, or perceptions. Since then, we have been collecting thoughts from the hostile environment.
When the child starts growing, every time it wants milk or anything else, it feels uncomfortable. This discomfort gets accompanied by crying. When the baby starts crying, the mother comes and gives the child attention. The child observes this pattern and develops a behavior — every time it needs something, it start crying. That is how the child’s first thought occurs in the mind. The brain starts creating a chemical reaction, and the thought gets conditioned in the body.
While growing up, the child keeps observing what is happening around, including the other family members’ specific ways of behavior and reactions. The child tries to learn many things from both the family and the society at large. Later on, when the child joins school, learning from the behavior of the teachers and the classmates also takes place. This way, the child learns both positive and negative behavior. Repeated exposure to the same type of a behavior becomes a feeling in the body of the child. Until the age of seven, the subconscious mind of the child is completely open, while the analytical mind is still not there; so whatever information the child receives from the environment, gets integrated into a subconscious programming, and then it gets conditioned in the body.
When you get a feeling, the brain automatically starts observing what is happening in the body. It triggers associated memories which are related to that feeling which you have been collecting throughout your life. The intensity of the feeling in the body will start magnifying. After a certain period, that particular feeling will become an emotion in the body. When you are exposing yourself to the same type of emotions regularly, it will become a habit, and the habit will turn into an attitude. Regular repetition of the attitude becomes your belief system. The belief system becomes your perception towards anything and everything in the world.
By the age of 30 or 35, our mind is completely framed, developed. That mind is nothing but a bundle of thoughts, emotions, attitudes, behaviors, belief systems and perceptions. All this knowledge and information makes that particular individual limited, because the environment is, at best, only partially positive. Most of the time, the environment is hostile. Through our five senses, we pick up a lot of that negativity. Patriji once said: “You are nothing but the information that you carry in your mind. You have become that.” At the time you were born, you had nothing of what is called a personality. Over a period of time, by seeing the environment, you have taken many things personally, and the things which you have taken personally, have become your personality. It may be good or bad, but it does not matter. That personality has become conditioned in every cell of your body. More than a 100 trillion cells in your body work like a community. Whatever condition you feel in the body, that instruction is automatically given to every single cell. The whole body is conditioned with your intentions.
When you sit in meditation and instruct yourself that you have to become very healthy, your body will become healthy. That is the impact you can create by the power of your thought. That is your supernatural power. When you were born, you were completely supernatural. However, throughout your life, you have become addicted to thoughts, feelings and emotions, and this addition creates attitude and habits which in turn become belief system, and finally perception. All taken together is nothing but personality traits.
Every personality is unique. Over a period if time, when you are caught in this personality, most of your functions and most of your emotional triggers/reactions are governed by the subconscious mind. Every day you are getting between 60,000 and 70,000 thoughts, out of which 95% are governed by the subconscious mind. 80% of these thoughts are repeated thoughts. This is the extent to which you have been programmed. You are not even aware that you have this kind of thinking patterns.
There are three things which are not there in your control — body, environment and time. Body is not in your control due to the subconscious mind programming and conditioning. Environment is not in your control because you have been programmed to listen to what others are saying, and you lack analyzing capacity to distinguish good from wrong. Because of these two, your time is also not in your control. Your body does not know whether you are in the past or in the future — your body reacts only to your thoughts. Your body itself has become mind. When these thee things are not in your control, your whole life is out of your control. Because of this, you create diseases in your body and you create hostile situations in your life. You are never in the present moment.
Achieving Self-Mastery by Conquering Negativity
To have self-mastery, to take control of these three things (body, environment and time), we need to know what is negative and what is positive. In order to receive the new transformative knowledge, we need to empty ourselves, to understand ourselves, and to understand how we have been programmed for every small emotion. Most of our thoughts are negative. Through meditation we can understand how to recondition our body in order to create absolute health.
Among the numerous books which Patriji has recommended, there is an extraordinary book ‘Self-Actualization and Self-Mastery’ written by Torkom Saraydarian. This book says that, if you want to master your life, you need to take control of three things — body, environment and time. When we conquer these three things, we achieve self-mastery. Once we achieve self-mastery, the next step is self-actualization.
Saraydarian also writes about the presence of negativity in everyone. Negativity is the state of consciousness that sees only the destructive side of every human being. Negativity expresses itself through irritation. When we are more negative, we block our chakras, we become less immune, and develop diseases. Negative people like to gossip, and gossip is cancer. Negative people like to tell stories about people who are negative. Negative people always make other people worthless. Negative parents or a negative boss make their children or co-workers worthless. Another sign of negative people is to dig for the weaknesses of other people. Negativity also comes from the sense of worthlessness. Remembering that opportunities that you have lost in the past, turn you negative. A friendship with negative people is always negative. Negative people always see things that are wrong in you, and they make you eventually identify with your errors.
How to overcome negativity? The moment we understand that we carry negativity, and that we need to overcome it, an immediate action will be taken. Our mind will help us pull that negativity out of our system. Happiness is something which can be attained through your physical senses. Joy comes when you understand the complete you, when you understand that you are not the body. Happiness is from the perspective of biological identity. Joy is from the perspective of the Soul. We need to understand the consequences of being negative. Only then we can come out of negativity. We also need to discuss negativity very openly. The moment we talk about it, there is a chance to recognize the extent to which we carry negativity, the extent to which it is affecting our health, and the extent to which it is impacting our interpersonal relationships. We need to realize the root-cause of negativity in ourselves. Next, when you see a person acting negatively, point out to them the positive aspect of the situation, and help them see the positive way in which they can act.
When we (or someone else whom we know) has a breakdown, we can follow a few steps. First, stop what you are doing, stop reacting to the situation. Just take a deep breath, relax, and understand what has happened and why it has happened. Let us understand whether there have been any miscommunications and misunderstandings. Once you identify it, you can identify a solution. Take an immediate action. Then every breakdown will transform into a breakthrough.
Teach people admiration. When you are negative, your expression of emotions will be egocentric. Contrary, when you are positive, the expression of your emotions will be heart-centric. You will be appreciating people whole-heartedly, not partially or for the sake of some benefit. You are going to create joy and ecstasy to conquer negativity.
How to create positivity? By recognizing and by identifying the negativity which is within you. Admit it, accept it, and declare that you have been creating your negativity through your subconscious programming. When you understand this, your consciousness will expand. When you understand that negativity is completely impacting your life, our conscious mind will slowly expand from 5% to 95%. The programming of your subconscious mind is not helping you, because it has been programmed in a wrong way. When we start doing meditation, the conscious mind will automatically keep expanding.
Once you start being attentive of every action which you take, initially a lot of resistance will come from your mind. The program will try to convince you, to justify that it is right. We should not be trapped by this resistance. Initially, the body, too, will not cooperate in meditation — there is resistance coming from your body. The body, too, is programmed. So, you have to push yourself for at least 21 days. This is enough time to create a new habit, a new tuning of your body. When you teach your body how to sit calmly in meditation, then the body and the mind will help you. When you are in meditation, then you can take control of your body, environment and time. Then you can create a present moment in your life. You are no longer identified with your past, with your position, now with your body. You are coming out of your biological identity. You will identify yourself as a pure awareness — with pure consciousness. You can access the quantum field (God, Universal Intelligence) within you. You can access anything in this Universe.
About the Speaker: Mr. Vamsi Krishna is from Chennai. He began his meditation journey in 2002. He is a meditation teacher by passion, and he has taught thousands of people about the benefits of meditation. A civil engineer by profession, he has dedicated his life to building pyramids throughout the world, and supporting the PSSM mission. He has built a huge pyramid in Bali, Indonesia. He has also constructed pyramids in Malaysia, as well as many pyramids across India.
The talk about the Science of Personality Traits, delivered by Mr. Vamsi Krishna, is the first part of the Masterclass series on Becoming Supernatural. The video can be viewed here: http://y2u.be/8ON5VEJyMJg