Acharya Mahaprajna
The Art & Science Of Living
Chapter 2.
The Issues
15
Integrated Personality
[A split personality is the cause of reactions, a narrow outlook, communalism, hypocrisy, immorality, cruelty, greed and selfishness thriving in our society. We should not have a narrow outlook, we have to perceive within and without. True happiness lies within and not in the satisfaction of desires. An integrated personality solves both external and internal problems.]A businessman was organising a feast with full devotion. It is traditional to offer papad (a salty, crisp delicacy) at the end of the feast. Though papad is nothing special, the feast is considered incomplete without it. The businessman thought that he should serve the papad himself in order to meet the guest and have a feedback about the quality of food. When the turn of an ordinary person came, the papad that he served broke. The guest saw the broken papad and got annoyed. He thought how unworthy was the host who served full papads to all affluent people and served him a broken papad. He could not tolerate it. He became angry and thought of avenging himself. After some time, the man arranged a big feast and invited all the important people, including the businessman. Good food was served. Everybody enjoyed the food. As the feast was concluding, the host came with the basket of papads and served complete papads to all the guests. When he came to the businessman he offered him a broken papad. The businessman did not notice it at all. When the host saw that the businessman did not pay any attention to the broken papad then his chance to rejoice was ruined, as he could not enjoy
his revenge. He stopped and spoke to him, "Do you recollect that day when you had served me a broken papad?" The businessman replied that he did not remember the incident. The host told the businessman that he had borrowed money to offer the feast in order to take revenge. The businessman said, "You fool, why did you borrow so much money? You should have told me earlier." Here, the problem is of a broken papad and a split, disintegrated personality. When the personality is not integrated then even a broken papad can create a big problem.The meaningful solution to the problem is to develop an integrated personality. Psychology deals with dual and non-dual personalities. A disintegrated and split personality is very dangerous and it is vital to evolve an integrated personality. Some people are focused on religion only, while others are focused on community. This gives only a limited vision. There is a need to have a balanced approach towards religion and community for an integrated personality.
Mahavira proposed two principles: transcendental and empirical. When we want to work, we should be empirical and when we want to attain the truth then we should move to the transcendental level. We cannot attain truth, while existing in an empirical world and we cannot conduct our life with a transcendental approach. Both life and truth are important. Life has to be lived and we have to reach the truth. Therefore, we have to develop an integrated personality. Prekshadhyana is the practice of spirituality. People practising Prekshadhyana are actually practising spirituality, which takes them to the self. The external boundaries are terminated. There is a lot of difference between the within (internal) and without (external). Externally what we see as truth is a misnomer. Externally we may like a thing but while seeking within we may observe it differently.
A person who has not realised spirituality, cannot have an integrated personality. All religious people say that happiness and sorrow are felt through our sense organs. Eating, drinking and making merry are all sorrows. The above statement will appear false to a person living in the sensual world. He will say, "I am enjoying total bliss. When I am hungry, I take food. When I feel thirsty, I take water and feel satisfied. When I feel sleepy, I sleep well. I feel the pleasure altogether here." But only the person who has meditated within his inner Self and activated his conscious centres, can understand the true nature of happiness. He only can feel the truth, whether the bliss is within or without. When the intuition centre and the bliss centre are activated then only real bliss is realised and man is able to clearly differentiate and declare that such bliss can never be experienced through food, drinks and other material enjoyments. This is an entirely different kind of happiness. Now only the person who has reached that level can understand why the spiritual masters did not consider external pleasure as happiness. In their opinion, external bliss is very weak, monotonous, and dull as compared to internal bliss. But if a person has never understood the inner Self, how can he have an integrated personality? He cannot understand it at all.
A villager had never seen a movie. His friends took him to see one. As the movie was about to begin, the lights were switched off. The villager said, "Look at the foolishness, they have created darkness and in this darkness what will they show us? Have we come to see the movie or to sit in darkness?"
If you were asked not to eat for an hour and just be aware of your inner Self, you would definitely think that eating would satisfy your hunger but meditation could bring nothing. People who practise meditation can surely forego food for a few hours though they would not like to forego meditation.
A youngster had recently joined a meditation camp. He always complained that he could not sit for more than half an hour at one place. He felt restless. One day, fortunately his awareness got tuned to the intuition centre. He could experience pleasant vibrations for two hours and he kept sitting like a statue. His family members got worried. Keeping awake for long does not worry anyone but going into deep meditation worries everyone. I went near the boy and touched his intuition centre and he got up. He said, "Why did you interrupt me now"? He did not want to get up. We told him that he had been sitting there for the last two hours. He said that he was so engrossed in happiness that it was very difficult to come out of it. Such happiness can be experienced from within through meditation.
This realisation comes only when man has looked within. Only then does he know that bliss exists within also, otherwise he can never accept and believe what his spiritual masters have said. True faith in religion and spirituality can exist only in that person who has realised it from the very depth of his consciousness. It has to be perceived, understood and finally known that immense happiness lies within. The person practising Prekshadhyana achieves concentration and the restlessness of his mind starts disappearing. Concentration leads to peace and bliss. What is bliss? Eating and drinking do not lead to bliss. Bliss is basically our electric vibrations. Vibrations exist within, and when they merge with our mind, bliss is experienced. If you eat while your mind wanders, you will not enjoy the food. If a person eating very delicious food is informed that he has incurred a loss of ten million, will he be able to enjoy the delicious food?
Actually, bliss is experienced only when our inner vibrations get activated with the concentration of the mind. When the mind is diverted by some anxiety then pleasure will not be experienced. Where does bliss lie, in the material world or in the mental state? During the activity of the mental tate and vibrations, when the mind is relaxed then bliss is rated. §0 actual bliss lies within, though we have assumed this to be available outside in the mundane world.
Imagine that while eating delicious food, a man hears that his beloved has expired. What will happen? He may start weeping. Now, you be the judge and observe, had the bliss been existing in the material world, then he should remain happy, but he starts weeping. It is only because, when our mind is burden-free, we experience happiness. When our mind is pious, we feel pleasure. When the state of the mind changes, the state of happiness also changes. This truth is grasped only when we are aware of our inner Self and the external world. Our personality is integrated when we experience the within (internal) as well as the without (external).
A disintegrated personality has a lot of wrong beliefs. Communal intolerance and fanaticism are due to a disintegrated personality. People are highly attached to their community and do not feel perturbed while harming others to protect their community. They do not have any hesitation in uplifting their own community and pulling down other communities.
Community should have spirituality as its innermost soul. Many times the question arises - why do religions cause so many fights? There cannot be any fight at all due to religion. Religion basically intends to purify our consciousness. Religion means sacrifice and control. It involves purifying our consciousness by sacrificing, restraining and observing fasts. All quarrels are the result of excessive indulgence in material benefits and polluting consciousness. In fact, fights start because of communalism, and we blame them on religion. If we blame religion and hold it responsible for fights then it will tarnish the image of religion and no solution will result. We should clearly understand that quarrels are happening due to communalism. The community that does not teach its followers to adopt spirituality and practise self-awareness can never help them to be successful in life.
Today's escalation of unethical values is on account of a disintegrated personality, which is the outcome of communalism. Communities are blindly pursuing rituals and their followers are simply contented with worship and rituals. Unfortunately, communities merely stress upon the performance of rituals and ethical values are totally ignored. In view of the above, in spite of religion, immorality thrives. The position of religion would have been dramatically changed, if the prime emphasis were upon morality and subsequently upon worship and rituals. The prime objective of religion has been ruthlessly ignored and mechanical rituals are common. This is a big problem. Here, the morality I am referring to is not that morality which is predetermined. Today the term morality has been defined in legal language. Our legal system has become so complicated that it is difficult to define morality. I am actually discussing morality, which removes cruelty from men and awakens compassion in them. This is termed as morality. Morality teaches one not to inflict cruelty upon others, not to deceive others and to keep one's consciousness pure and pious. With this achievement, the whole picture of India would change. Man indulges in several evils due to his selfishness, greed and cruelty under the pretence of law. A greedy person has to be cruel; otherwise he cannot remain greedy at all.
Without cruelty, greed cannot sustain itself. So all this is occurring because of cruelty. The greed, may be for power, authority, money, position, etc., it is encouraged by cruelty. During elections, because of the greed for power, somebody gets his competitor eliminated. He thinks that because he has a competitor, he would not win the election, and become a minister. As long as the inclination of greed is not reformed, cruelty will perpetuate and as long as cruelty is alive, man cannot be moral; as long as he is moral, he cannot become religious. If our religious master had taught this, then perhaps, the situation would have been different. This vital lesson has been ignored and one is only taught to worship and perform a lot of rituals. So many rituals have been imposed without a taboo on selfishness, greed, ego and dishonesty. By merely performing rituals, one thinks that one has become a religious person. One's personality remains disintegrated. As a whole, if you evaluate Prekshadhyana, you will appreciate that this is purely a spiritual process, not the ritual of one community. It is a pure religious practice. It means the process of perceiving within. It is a process of internal catharsis. It is necessary to clean within. As long as the dirt, dust and rubbish permeate within, one cannot remain healthy. The first process of gaining health is to perform the internal cleansing. Whatever filth, sin and rubbish is accumulated within should be cleansed. Only then will good health manifest. Good health actually manifests itself, it is not to be brought from somewhere.
We have a lot of impurity in our thoughts and emotions. As long as we do not perceive within, till then catharsis does not take place. The sooner we start perceiving within, purging commences and foreign particles are pushed out. When a person perceives within, his internal cleansing begins, which ultimately integrates his personality. So the doctrine for the development of an integrated personality is to follow two directions, one direction is to perceive the external and the other one is to perceive within. It should be neither total Perception of the external nor total perception of within. Both will be one-sided things and cause an imbalance, for disintegration of our journey of life should go on internally and externally. On pondering over these two point of views our outlook will be holistic, multidimensional and integrated, only then will we be able to solve the problems of the external world existing due to the internal world and vice versa.