Personality Vs. Individuality

“Your personality is a social phenomenon. Your being is buried deep down under this personality. You need a shock, so that the personality is thrown open, or for some moments you are identified with it no more and you reach the center. There, everything is empty.

The whole art of meditation is, how to leave the personality easily, move to the center, and be not a person. Just to be and not be a person is the whole art of meditation, the whole art of inner ecstasy.”

“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.”

“Individuality is exactly what it means. It is individual. Personality is not individual; it is social. Society wants you to have personalities, not individualities, because your individualities will create conflict. The society hides your individuality and gives a personality.

Personality is a learned thing. The word 'personality' comes from a Greek root which means mask -- PERSONA. In Greek drama, the actors used to wear masks to hide their real faces and to show some other face. From PERSONA comes the word personality. It is a face that you wear; it is not your original face.

When the personality disappears, don't be afraid. Then for the first time you become authentic. For the first time you become real. For the first time you attain to essence. That essence in India has been called ATMA, the soul.

The ego is the center of personality, and God is I he center of essence. That's why so much insistence, from every corner, that ego has to be dropped. Because you must know what you are, not what you are expected to be.

Personality is false; it is the greatest lie. The whole society depends on personality. The state, the church, the organizations, the establishments -- they are all lies. The Western psychology goes on thinking too much about the personality. That's why the whole Western psychology is a psychology based on a basic lie.

In the East, we think of the essence, not of the personality. That which you have brought, that which is your intrinsic nature, SWABHAVA, that which is your intrinsic essence -- THAT has to be known. And that has to be lived.

Personality is that which you are not, but try to show that you are. Personality is that which, when you move in society, you have to use as a convenience.”

“I say to you, be one with the universe; you have to disappear and let the existence be. You just have to be absent so that the existence can be present in its totality. But the person who has to disappear is not your reality, it is only your personality. It is just an idea in you. In reality you are already one with existence; you cannot exist in any other way.

But the personality creates a deception, and makes you feel separate. You can assume yourself to be separate -- existence gives you total freedom, even against itself. You can think of yourself as a separate entity, an ego. And that is the barrier that is holding you back from melting into the vastness that surrounds you every moment.”

“The ordinary, unconscious human being has no individuality; he has only a personality.
Personality is that which is given by others to you -- by the parents, by the teachers, by the priest, by the society -- whatever they have said about you. And you have been desiring to be respectable, to be respected, so you have been doing things which are appreciated, and the society goes on rewarding you, respecting you more and more. This is their method of creating a personality.

But personality is very thin, skin-deep. It is not your nature. The child is born without a personality, but he is born with a potential individuality. The potential individuality simply means his uniqueness from anybody else -- he is different.

So first, remember that individuality is not personality. When you drop personality, you discover your individuality -- and only the individual can become enlightened. The false cannot become the ultimate realization of truth.”

“Emptying oneself brings individuality, more and more individuality. Emptying oneself means emptying oneself of all that is implied in personality.

Personality is a farce, personality is pseudo, personality is that which is given to you by the society. Personality is imposed on you from the outside; it is a mask. Individuality is your very being. Individuality is that which you bring into the world, individuality is God's gift.

Personality is ugly because it is pseudo. And the more personality you have, the less is the possibility for individuality to grow. The personality starts occupying the whole of your space. It is like a cancerous growth. It goes on growing, it possesses you totally. It leaves no space for individuality to have even its own corner. The personality has to be dropped, so that the individuality can be.

Individuality is a non-egoistic phenomenon; it is pure am-ness, it has no 'I' in it. Personality is nothing but 'I': it has no am-ness in it. Personality is aggressive, violent, dominating, political. Individuality is silent, loving, compassionate; it is religious.”

“But people are upside down: the head has become the master and the heart has become the servant. Logic rules, love is not even heeded. Personality has become more important than individuality. Personality is that which is conferred on you by others, individuality is that which is given to you by God. Personality is just a mask, persona; individuality is your uniqueness.

The society wants you to have beautiful personalities; the society wants you to have personalities which are comfortable for the society, convenient for the society. But the person is not the real thing, the individual is the real thing. The individual is not necessarily always comfortable to the society -- in fact he is very inconvenient.”

“The ego is the child of the personality. Many people would like to drop the ego, but they don't understand the inner connection. They would like to drop the ego because it gives so much misery. It continuously hurts, it is like a wound. It never allows you any rest, it always keeps you restless. It is a disease. Many people by and by start feeling that it is better if they can get rid of the ego, but they never think that this is the child of the personality. If you want to get rid of the ego, you will have to drop your personality.”

“The ideas that we gather from others give us a personality, and the knowledge that we come to know from within gives us individuality. Personality is false, individuality is real. Personality is borrowed; reality, individuality, your authenticity, can never be borrowed. Nobody can say who you are.”

“You have not only personality, you have personalities, each one of you many personalities, because you need different faces in different situations with different people. When you are talking to your wife you need one personality: the personality of a husband. When you are talking to your girlfriend you talk differently; you are using the personality of a lover. When you are talking to the priest, you certainly behave in a different way.”

“If you go against your personality that the society has created, you will lose all respect; your ego will start collapsing. And that creates great fear in you, so you go on fulfilling the demands of the parents, of the teachers, of the priests, of the politicians, of all kinds of people who surround you and are trying to exploit you in every possible way. They depend on personality, and they go on enforcing the personality against the individuality. The individuality has to be repressed, completely forgotten, so that you start living in the false and the phony.

Socialism destroys individuality more than any other kind of political ideology, because socialism means society is the goal, not the individual. The individual has to be sacrificed for the society, not vice versa; the society cannot be sacrificed for the individual. And in fact "society" is a beautiful word; behind that beautiful word is hiding the ugly state. It is really the state that dominates in socialism, and the state does not want any kind of individuality in people. It effaces all individuality, it creates robots. It wants everybody to be just an efficient machine, nothing more.

This kind of socialism I am certainly against, but there is certainly a different kind of socialism which I am absolutely for. But the process is totally different, just diametrically opposite: the individuality has to be saved and the personality has to be dissolved.”

“Your personality is all that you know about yourself -- I am making it absolutely simple so that you can be alert -- and your individuality is that which you don't know and you are.

Meditation is an effort to get rid of personality and to reach to your living sources of life, your individuality, your flame, that you have brought from your mother's womb -- and that you had before your birth, even before you entered the womb of the mother. You have had your individuality since eternity. It is your essential consciousness which is covered with so many layers of so many lives that it is lost completely and you have forgotten the way how to reach back to it.

And every life goes on adding more and more layers of dust around your essential life. That essential life is immortal; your personality is mortal.

Your personality is dependent on other people; hence you are always afraid of other people. A famous man can become nobody if people change their minds. And people change their minds so easily. There is not much difficulty in it.”

“The master's function is to destroy your personality. He knows you as an individual, but he does not know you as a person.

Personality is something created, invented. Individuality is something born.

The master is deeply concerned with your individuality, just the way you were born, your self nature, uncontaminated, unpolluted. But he is not interested in whether you are a doctor, an engineer, a plumber, a president; whether you are successful in life or a failure, whether you are Hindu or Mohammedan or Christian, whether you have a black skin or a white skin. All these non-essentials make your personality. Only your consciousness makes your individuality. And as far as individuality is concerned, it is the same -- it is universal. This is the greatest mystery of life -- that the most individual thing in you is at the same time the most universal, because it is the same in everyone.”

“So really, a sannyasin doesn't mean a person who renounces the world. A sannyasin means a person who renounces the personality -- that belongs to you! You are the creator of it, so you can renounce it. Nothing else! You cannot renounce anything that doesn't belong to you. The personality belongs to you; you can renounce it, but you can renounce only when you begin to be aware that you are not the personality. This is known as KSHETRAGYA, the knower of the field. The field is personality, and the knower, the center which becomes aware of this personality. If you become aware of the center, of the knower, then there is not difficulty in renouncing the personality. It is just a clothing, JUST a clothing, and very dirty and very diseased.”

"Personality is always stubborn, individuality never. Personality has to be stubborn, because it is false. If it is not stubborn it cannot exist at all. It has to be maintained continuously -- you have to fight for it. The personality consists of nothing but ego, self, greed, anger, violence, because deep down you are aware of the trembling, of the fear of death. Deep down you know your inferiority. The personality brags about its superiority.

Remember always, whatsoever the personality brags about is exactly the opposite of your reality. If you are feeling unintelligent inside, your personality will project intelligence. If you are feeling unloving inside, your personality will create a very sweet, smiling, loving quality. It is not just to deceive others; it is really, basically, to deceive oneself. You want to forget your unlovingness. If you are feeling empty inside, your personality will start gathering a thousand and one possessions.”