Secrets of an Authentic Personality

Acharya Prashant

5 min
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Secrets of an Authentic Personality

A. Objective and Fear

Wherever there is an objective, there would be fear associated with it. You hope to get something, and you fear that you may not get it. Don’t you see that a man who is chasing goals has condemned himself to live in fear?

It is possible to have an objective, and be on the road to it, very calmly. It is possible to work very energetically, without the fear of loss, or without the fear of failure. But that happen only when your objective is not arising from an internal sense of incompleteness.

B. Silence

Silence is that which you want, really-really want, when you move from one type of noise to the other type. That is Silence. But because all your experience has only been about noise, so even when you are thirsty and craving for Silence, all you can deliberately move towards is some kind of noise, apparently a more pleasant kind of noise, apparently a more agreeable kind of noise, a newer kind of noise. But Silence is the thirst of your mind. Like a man who has been trained in noise. So he is changing one radio-station after the other, and never feeling satisfied with any particular channel or station. He does not know what he is really wanting. And he does not know why no channel pleases him. And he is changing one channel after the other. And it does not occur to him that all he wants is freedom from these channels. He wants freedom from noise. He wants Silence. It cannot occur to him, because Silence is not a thought. Whenever he would think, he would think of a different kind of noise. And we have become so-used to working only as per thought, that we take each and every step after due deliberation and thought, which leads us to a newer kind of noise -- which is not really new, obviously -- that’s all.

We too have been changing, flipping one channel after the other. Have we not been? One property to the other property, one woman to another woman, one excitement to another, one piece of clothing to another, one tourist destination to another destination. And we have never come to the last destination. Nothing really pleases us. And the proof of that is, that the search continues, and the search is fuelled by our sub-conscious frustration. The society calls that - the urge of achievement, ambition. If you are a little realistic, you will realize that it is just your inbuilt frustration which does not allow you to stop, which does not allow you to settle down that the next place is going to bring you relief

C. Personality

Personality is the expression of your potential. The potential is already there within you, when it is expressed, then it is called personality.

Do not think that personality is about a certain way of behaving. No, that is not personality. What you really are, when that gets expressed, manifested, then that is personality. Have a real personality.

Be a genuine man, a genuine woman.

D. Planning

In all the trivial matters of life, go ahead and plan. You want to fly somewhere, you will need to buy a ticket in advance, go ahead and plan. It is true that when I come here, I have to plan as to what time I will leave my office.

But do I also plan what I will say to you? Do I also plan what you will ask me? Do I know what is written in your sheets? Do I know what I am going to say next?

Whatever is inconsequential, go ahead and plan it. It anyway does not matter.

Whatever is important, whatever is central, kindly do not let any kind of planning touch it.

You are going to meet somebody, alright, plan out the time of meeting. But for God’s sake, do not plan what you will do after meeting. 'We’ll hug at 8, we’ll kiss at 8:15.' Now what kind of meeting is this? Are you getting what am I saying?

All the petty and trivial stuff, that needs to be planned. Go ahead and plan it. You will need to plan the design of your house, but do not plan what you will do inside the house.

As you minimize the role of planning in your life, your freedom increases. Getting it? Planning is your own bondage. You have told yourself that I cannot go beyond my plan. Why do you want to impose such a bondage upon yourself?

This article has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation from transcriptions of sessions by Acharya Prashant
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