FROM A SITE VISITOR: Like Raja, I’m new to Advaita--but never had any religious training. It is easy enough to know that I am more than a body but why do you say I should not have a personality? Thank you.
F.: Another reason that Advaitin teachers suggest being free of personality is that it reinforces the illusion of doership, and doership reinforces the acceptance of false identifies (the belief among the non-Realized being, "What I do also defines who I am."). As long as persons believe that they are defined by what they do, then they will not abandon their false identifications and seek to understand That Which They Truly Are.
Consider the life-long (relative) effects on children who have been set up by their childhood environment to play the role of “The Helper” personality type. In their case, by the age of five or six, they have already been conditioned to believe that the unconditional love (which they desire but are not receiving) will come if only they become (Type Two) "helpers."
If they never Realize, then those children will spend an entire relative existence playing that role, assuming that to be a true identity, and unconsciously doing all required to support that false identity. They will (dualistically) work to be not only a helper but a “good” helper or even a "great helper," and the warped consciousness will believe for life that what they do defines who they are.
Does “helping” never happen among the Realized? To the contrary, "relative helping" may happen, or not. What does not happen among the Realized is an assumption of a role such as “The Helper” that automatically and egotistically upgrades itself to “The Good Helper” or “The Great Helper” and who thereafter enters into co-dependent interactions for a lifetime with "needy types."
Peace came when “The Teacher” (and “The Great Teacher”) disappeared; then, teaching merely happened—or not. As a result, no attachment to outcome or to a persona happened any longer, and no emotional intoxication resulted whether teaching happened or did not happen. Here, there is no do-er who is teaching. There is witnessing only, and that witnessing either observes teaching as it happens or observes teaching as it does not happen. (That seeker "got it"; those seekers did not. So it is.)
But consider the effects when every child is conditioned and programmed to play the helper personality type or to assume one of the other eight personality types and to play that role for the entire relative existence. They will be convinced that, to be loved and accepted and happy, they must reform; or must help; or must perform; or must accumulate vast knowledge; or must be loyal to—and never question—authority; or must control and boss; or must try to keep the peace at any cost.
Next, personality is the prerequisite for personality disorders. (Much has been shared in earlier posts that can be referenced by visitors seeking more detail.) Research shows that approximately 1-5% of the population of “developed” countries are clinically insane but that 95-99% suffer serious personality disorders.
Is it now becoming clearer why Advaitin teachers suggest to seekers that they begin the "journey" by casting aside the body as an identity, by rejecting the belief that the content of the “mind” can be the means by which the True Self can be known, and by ending domination by personality? Is it clear why belief in personas must end if one would come to know the True Self? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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