THREE LAYERS OF PERSONALITIES AND HAPPINESS

THREE LAYERS OF PERSONALITIES

AND HAPPINESS

  

                                                                            The one,

Who cannot think........is a fool.

Who dare not think.......is a coward.

Who can think...... is HUMAN.

And is the crest and crown of creation.

SO THINK YOU MUST.

Previous Reference :It's Never Late To Contemplate on the Values of Shastras

Forward Reference:The Passage to Endless Strength and Courage

      I am going to put forth in these pages the delicate Vedantic truths in a very simple and day-to-day language. This practicable knowledge and well established as ultimate philosophy, is the findings of our ancient saints and sages and I don’t claim or own the authorship of any of these ideas. I welcome all to analyze the same intensively, criticize, comment on the contents (both in favour and against), ask questions, and if convinced (and I am sure of that to ultimately happen), then and only then share these ideas with others. This is our own philosophical heritage and we owe some responsibility to it. I promise to attend all the queries and questions, make a note of each of them, and attend to them at an appropriate place in the subsequent pages. This page, Vedanta, the Ultimate Philosophy, is dedicated to all my thinker friends with a curious head on their shoulders. I shall eagerly wait for their reactions. (If any one prefers to communicate with me on these chapters without being public is advised to do the same on my email address or through a direct message on Face book.)

      The self proclaimed mahatmas and pseudo-intellectuals are requested not to waste their time on these pages. The net and the social sites are flooded with the materials of their interests.

     Vedanta is a very practicable philosophy. The Swadhyay and Abhyasa that we found essential in maintaining Vedantic living, in my previous post, will hold the key for next chapters. These are the most logical conclusions drawn by our ancient masters but their logic is to be examined and ascertained through our deep thinking. We are not supposed to believe any of the philosophical finding simply because the same is associated with some great and most respectable Rishi or is the commandment of our Holy Scriptures. We are entitled to examine it. But then, we must first of all know what is said there and then evaluate the same on our own logic (Swadhyay). So, a deep thinking on these values is essential before we come to any conclusion. Secondly, if their finding turns out to be the logical and trust worthy, we must practice the same and share the ideas with the others (Abhyasa).

   

       We did talk of three personalities (viz Physical, mental and Intellectual), that are involved in Swadhyay and Abhyasa. The fourth personality viz Spiritual Personality is the base, essence and substratum of all these three personalities, and hence is not within the purview of Abhyasa and Swadhyay. We also need to understand that when we use the term personality we normally include all these personalities and thus all of them are available and work in us simultaneously. Physical personality is the grossest one, mental zone is subtler than the physical and the intellectual level of our personality is the subtlest of these three (under our scrutiny).  So, there is the gross to subtle line of these personalities active in us all the time. We need not talk about spiritual personality at this moment. Physical personality includes our gross body (that is, five organs of action, plus five of perception) and the physiological functions called Pranas (five in numbers). The emotional personality represents our mental zone and therefore is the seat of all our emotions and feelings like love, hate etc. And the last one, intellectual personality, is represented by our thoughts, ideas, ideologies etc. This is as for as the constitution of our personalities is concerned. We need to examine their part in the plays of our life.

      Now, is it not the fact that our life is governed by two basic motivating instincts while performing all our activities? These dynamic factors governing all our actions round the clock, during the entire span of our whole life, are :-

1. Sukh Prapti (सुख प्राप्ति)
2. Dukh Nibrati (दुःख निब्रति)

     You see, while doing any thing or performing any activity, we either are following the bits and pieces of happiness that we could gather out of those activities or we are running away from sorrow. This is in our nature to seek happiness as much as possible. That is true even when we are running away from the sorrows.

     Let us now join together these two important psychological aspects of our being, the three layers of our personalities and the dynamic factor of seeking happiness. I request you to deeply think on this matter. If we identify our selves by our physical personality, which most of us always do, what is the quantum of happiness we receive with that identification? An illustration is essential at this place. Let us suppose you are walking in a garden and you see an apple falling from its tree. What can be your probable reaction, if you are predominantly identifying yourself with your physic? You will pick up that apple and most likely eat it. You may enjoy. The test and the content of the fruit may give you little bit of happiness that can sustain for few minutes and then forgotten. But if you are predominantly identifying with your emotional personality, and let us say you are an artist, a painter, a person living with subtler aspects of life, you can enjoy the beauty of the fruit, its colours, paint it one canvas, and while enjoying your master piece (and also letting others to enjoy it), you can also eat that fruit and get even that happiness that a physical individual received from the fruit. The quantum of your happiness, therefore, under the same circumstances, will be manifold. Being a person with subtler personality, you are then entitled for manifolds more happiness than others with grosser attitudes. But, now let us assume that you are above these two. You are an intellectual person, a Newton. You see the apple falling from the tree. While eating the same you go deep in to your thoughts and discover the law of gravity, the base of our modern science. Can you imagine the quantum of happiness you receive? Have you heard of the scientist who discovered the relationship between the weight and density and ran naked shouting “eureka-eureka” in the streets of the city? What do you imagine was the pressure of happiness that made him to ignore even normal civility? Or, may I remind you of the state of some Puranic characters, like Shivari, wife of Vidura, etc and their strange behaviour while meeting their ideal.

          Let us summaries. The quantum of happiness we receive in similar situation depends on our identification with grosser or subtler personalities. The subtler the personality you identify yourself with, the happiness you receive in the same field of activity is more than that of a grosser one. That is the secret of happiness our ancestors discovered millenniums before and this was the starting point of Vedantic enquiry.

       We will discuss other aspects of happiness in subsequent post. Till then..........

Om Tat Sat

Yaduraj Singh Bais