THE HINDRANCE TO PEACE: PERSONALITY
F.: All personality is steeped in duality. “Personality” is that which results when persons assume personas, that is, false identities. Futhermore, a study of the Sufis’ enneagram system shows that nine personality types exist, and all of those have the duality of “positive” and “negative” traits. Note the dichotomy and conflict and self-contraction that drive false selves that are trapped in personality:
Type Ones can be fair and critical
Type Twos can be helpful to others and self-centered
Type Threes can be charming and vicious
Type Fours can be warm and self-absorbed
Type Fives can be sensitive and distant
Type Sixes can be practical and unpredictable
Type Sevens can be fun-loving and nitpicking
Type Eights can be protective and combative
Type Nines can be peaceful and passive-aggressive
One sign of being out of touch with Reality, (that is, being insane) is to be unstable. Persons, with all of their “asset traits” and “liability traits,” are unstable because of the opposing, dualistic traits they exhibit when driven by personality. As the Advaita teacher noted, “A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways.” Personality is a hindrance to the peace that can only come with a sense of wholeness or oneness; conversely, assuming various personas as identities becomes a source of feeling disjointed and being broken into pieces. Are you in peace, or in pieces?
Because personality is false, those trapped in personas and wearing their masks never experience a sense of the Real and therefore feel an emptiness. Feeling empty, they never feel fulfilled. Never feeling “filled” or “full,” personas are always longing, wanting, and desiring; thus, they are never satisfied. Those false personas or ego-states always feel that they need “more” in order to feel complete or okay, so persons are driven to accumulate when the real solution to ending their misery is to de-accumulate: false roles must be set aside; concepts must be set aside; belief in dualities must be set aside. But ego is never satisfied with less but is driven instead to try to get more. Who can be at peace if not satisfied, if suffering the nagging senasation of “need,” if always being driven to get more, if never feeling as if you have…enough?
If you are caught below water and feel that you do not have enough air, what kind of panic ensures from that notion of not having enough? That is the way that personas all end up: in a panic or being driven, feeling suffocated, feeling that more and more and more is required to be okay. How many roles are you playing? How many identities have you assumed to define who you are? Are you trying to bring peace to the earth? Can a person give away something that she/he does not have? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
F.: All personality is steeped in duality. “Personality” is that which results when persons assume personas, that is, false identities. Futhermore, a study of the Sufis’ enneagram system shows that nine personality types exist, and all of those have the duality of “positive” and “negative” traits. Note the dichotomy and conflict and self-contraction that drive false selves that are trapped in personality:
Type Ones can be fair and critical
Type Twos can be helpful to others and self-centered
Type Threes can be charming and vicious
Type Fours can be warm and self-absorbed
Type Fives can be sensitive and distant
Type Sixes can be practical and unpredictable
Type Sevens can be fun-loving and nitpicking
Type Eights can be protective and combative
Type Nines can be peaceful and passive-aggressive
One sign of being out of touch with Reality, (that is, being insane) is to be unstable. Persons, with all of their “asset traits” and “liability traits,” are unstable because of the opposing, dualistic traits they exhibit when driven by personality. As the Advaita teacher noted, “A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways.” Personality is a hindrance to the peace that can only come with a sense of wholeness or oneness; conversely, assuming various personas as identities becomes a source of feeling disjointed and being broken into pieces. Are you in peace, or in pieces?
Because personality is false, those trapped in personas and wearing their masks never experience a sense of the Real and therefore feel an emptiness. Feeling empty, they never feel fulfilled. Never feeling “filled” or “full,” personas are always longing, wanting, and desiring; thus, they are never satisfied. Those false personas or ego-states always feel that they need “more” in order to feel complete or okay, so persons are driven to accumulate when the real solution to ending their misery is to de-accumulate: false roles must be set aside; concepts must be set aside; belief in dualities must be set aside. But ego is never satisfied with less but is driven instead to try to get more. Who can be at peace if not satisfied, if suffering the nagging senasation of “need,” if always being driven to get more, if never feeling as if you have…enough?
If you are caught below water and feel that you do not have enough air, what kind of panic ensures from that notion of not having enough? That is the way that personas all end up: in a panic or being driven, feeling suffocated, feeling that more and more and more is required to be okay. How many roles are you playing? How many identities have you assumed to define who you are? Are you trying to bring peace to the earth? Can a person give away something that she/he does not have? Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
TOMORROW: The Five Stages
