Personality development

Major (Retd.) Pravin Singh
Commandant
MB Patel Military School

Definition of Personality
 Cambridge International dictionary
defines:- ‘ your personality is the type of
person you are, which is shown by way
you behave, feel and think’.

 Longman dictionary of Contemporary
English defines:- ‘whole nature of
character of a person’

What is Personality
 How a person behaves, feels and thinks, how he conducts
himself in a given set of circumstances is defined by state
of mind.
 Mere external appearance, speech and mannerism are
only fringes of one’s personality.
 Personality development in real sense refers to deeper
level of a person.
 So we need to have a clear grasp of mind and how it
functions.

Necessity to know our mind
 We intend to make resolution to cultivate good
habits, to kick bad habits.
 Very often our mind rebels forcing us to beat a retreat
from our efforts in implementing our resolutions.
 As per Bhagwad Gita, undisciplined mind acts as our
enemy whereas a trained mind acts as our friend.
 Can we train our mind to obey and to cooperate with
us.
 We need to have a clear idea of the mechanism of
mind.

The fourfold functions of Mind
1. Memory.
2. Deliberation and
conceptualization.
3. Determination and Decision
making.
4. ‘I’ Consciousness.

1 st function of Mind: MEMORY
 The store house of memory and impression of
our past experiences . (chitta)
 In this store house impressions of thoughts
and actions – good or bad – are stored.
 The sum total of these impressions defines our
character.
 ‘Chitta’ is what is known as our
subconscious mind.

2nd Deliberation and Conceptualization
Not yet very sure mind examines the
various options presented before it. It
deliberates on several things.
This faculty of mind is called ‘manas’
Imagination and formation of concepts
are also function of ‘manas’

3 rd Determination & Decision making
 ‘Buddhi’ is the faculty responsible for decision
making.
 It has the capacity to judge the pros and cons.
 It is also the discriminatory faculty in a person which
enables him to differentiate between real and
unreal, what is to be done and what is to be
avoided, what is morally right and what is wrong.
 It is also the seat of WILL POWER so essential for
personality development and hence this aspect of
mind concerns us the most.

4 th ‘I’ Consciousness
 All physical and mental activities ‘I eat’, ‘I hear’, ‘I
talk’, ‘I think’ is called ‘ahamkara’ or ‘I’
consciousness.
 As long as ‘I’ identifies with undisciplined body-mind
complex human life is dictated by circumstances of
the world, we become happy with pleasurable events.
 More mind gets refined and disciplined, more does
one gets to know the real source of ‘I 'consciousness.
 A person becomes more balanced and equipoised in
daily life, no longer swayed by circumstances of life.

What is Character
 Every action and every thought of ours leaves an
impression on our mind.
 These impression determine how we behave or
respond to a given situation.
 Sum total of all our impressions defines our
Character.
 Past has defined our present.
 Present thoughts and action s will define our future.
 This is the key Principle of personality development.

What activates the body mind system
 The answer to this will help us to have better knowledge
of ourselves.
 Ancient sages experimented with themselves – the
sensory and mental apparatus to find this element ‘I’.
 What is the Mind of mind, the Ear of ear, the Eye of
eye, Speech of speeches.
 Divinity of real ‘I’ remains latent till we identify it with
body-mind and sensory system.
 The goal of life as per scriptures is to manifest the hidden
divinity.

Will Power
 Strengthening of will power is the essence
of Personality Development.
 Divine core of our personality has five
dimensions
 Physical Dimension
 Energy Dimension
 Mental Dimension
 Intellectual Dimension
 Blissful Dimension

Divine core and its 5 Dimensions
 Physical Dimension consists of our body and
sense.
 Energy Dimension which performs digestion of
food, circulation of blood and other activities of
body.
 Mental Dimension like activities of mind
thinking, feelings, emotions etc.
 Intellectual Dimension is determinative
faculty, eat of discrimination and WILL POWER.
 Blissful Dimension as experienced in bliss deep
sleep etc.

Essential qualities for PD
1. Faith in oneself
2. Think positive thoughts
3. Attitude toward failures and
mistakes
4. Self reliance
5. Renunciation and Service

 Faith in oneself
 Faith in God comes next only to faith on oneself.
 One who cannot trust himself cannot trust God.
 If one believes ones real nature is spirit – not the body
and mind- one would be better individual with stronger
character.
 Think positive thoughts
 Character is repeated habits and repeated habits
alone can transform character.
 “It is sin to think as ourselves and other as weak.”
Swami Vivekanand.

 Attitude toward failures and mistakes
 Fail and learn from failures rather than leading an inert
existence like a wall which cannot even tell lies.
 Self reliance
 We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish
our self to be, we have the power to make our self.
 Renunciation and Service
 Selfless service is paramount means to character
development.
 This coupled with renunciation of selfishness and desire
for fruits of action are the twin ideals of our nation.

Swami Vivekanand
 His ides on personality development spreads over
nine volumes of his complete works.
 Swamiji says: “Teach yourselves,
teach
everyone his real nature, call upon the
sleeping soul and see how it awakes.
Power will come, glory will come.
Goodness will come purity will
come, and everything that is excellent
will come when this sleeping soul is
roused to self conscious activity.”

It is personality that matters
 In our families there are heads, some of them are
successful others are not, why?
 We complain of others in our failures, we blame
somebody or something instead of confessing our fault or
weakness.
 Coming to great leaders of mankind, they were know not
because of their thoughts, their books or speeches but
because of their PERSONALITY.
 Personality of man is 2/3 rd and intellect, words etc are
just 1/3 rd.
 The ideal of all education and training must be this man
making. We try to polish outside when there is nothing
inside.

Laws of Personality Development
 A little bubble coming from the bottom of lake is not
seen, it is seen only when it bursts on the surface.
 Similarly we can see our thoughts only after they have
developed a great deal or after they have become
action.
 We complain that we have no control our
thoughts, but we can get hold of our thoughts at the
ROOTS, before it can become thought and then
action.
 This is how we can control our mind.
 He who controls his mind knows the secret of every
mind and has power of every mind.

Layers of Personality
 External instrument “sthula sharira”(Body and Organs.)
 Internal instrument “Sukshma Sharira” (Mind, intellect
and egoism.)
 Every human personality may be compared to a glass
globe. There is same pure white light inside in the center
of each.
 Equality and beauty of central flame is the same and
apparent inequality is only the temporal instruments of
its expression.
 As we rise to higher and higher in scale of being, the
medium becomes more and more translucent.

Man is Divine
 There is essentially no difference between man
and another man. All being are alike divine.
 There is an infinite ocean of
Existence, Knowledge and Bliss as our
birthright, our real nature; and the difference
between us is caused by the greater or
lesser power to manifest that divine.
 Manifest the divinity within you, and
everything will be harmoniously arranged
around it.

Pleasure is not the Goal
 Pleasure is not the goal of man, but Knowledge.
 Good and evil has equal share in moulding
character, and in some case misery is a greater
teacher than happiness.
 Wisdom is the goal of all life.
 Man enjoys intellect more than animal enjoys its
senses.
 We must seek knowledge and wisdom to know
self rather than being indulged in senses.

How to Change Our Character?
 Every work that we do, our thoughts and actions
leaves such an impression on the mind, which is not
obvious on surface but sufficiently strong beneath the
surface, subconsciously.
 Sum total of my impressions of past is what we are
today also defined as Character.
 If good impressions prevails character becomes good
and vice versa.
 If you want to judge real character of man, look not at
his great performance, every fool becomes a hero
one time or another.

 Great occasions rouse even the lowest of human
beings to some kind of greatness.
 But a really great man whose character is great
always, the same whatever he be.
 All the actions, movements and works in the
world, machines, cities, ships or men of war are
simply manifestation of the will of man and this
will is cause by character, character is
manufactured by Karma.
 Great work requires great and persistent effort for a
long time.

 The road to Good is the Toughest and the Steepest in
the universe.
 It is a wonder that so many succeed, no wonder that so
many fall.
 Character has to be established through a thousand
stumbles.
 Actions have a vibration, vibration dies out and leaves an
impression or “sanskars” .
 Large number of impressions make Habit.
 Habit is the second nature.
 We can make and unmake habit any time.
 The only remedy for bad habit is counter habit.

 All he bad habits have left their impressions are
to be controlled by good habits.
 Go on doing good things, thinking holy
thoughts, reading good books continuously, that
is the only way to suppress the base impressions.
 Never say a man is hopeless, because he
represents a character, a bundle of
habits, which can be checked by new & better
ones.
 Character is repeated habits, and repeated
habits alone can reform character.

Influence of Thought
 It is an observed fact that when a person do evil
actions, they become more and more evil, and when they
do good they become stronger and stronger and learn to
do good all the times.
 There are twofold danger in doing evil, firstly we open
ourselves to all the evil influences surrounding us
secondly we create evil which affects others.
 In doing good we do good to others as well.
 Like all other forces in man, these forces of good and evil
also gather strength from outside.
 Fill yourself with idea, whatever you do think well on
it, all your action will be magnified, transformed and
deified by the very power of thought.

Control your Negative Emotions
 We must have four sorts of ideas.
1. We must have friendship for all.
2. We must be merciful for those who are in misery.
3. When people are happy we ought to be happy.
4. And to the wicked we must be indifferent.
 If the subject is good we will feel friendly to
him, if the subject of thought is miserable we
must be merciful towards it.
 If it is good we must be glad if it is evil, we must
be indifferent.
 This attitude of mind will keep mind peaceful.

 Most of the difficulties in our daily life come from
being unable to hold our mind in that way.
 E.g. if some one does evil we want to react evil and we
lose our power.
 Every vicious thought will rebound, every thought of
hatred will come back to you with tremendous power
in some form of misery with compound interest.
 Once you have put them in motion you will have to
bear them.
 Remembering this will prevent you from doing
wicked things.

 The great secret is – absence of
jealousy.
 Be always ready to concede to the opinions
of your brethren, and always try to
conciliate.
 That is the whole secret.
Fight on bravely, Life is short,
Give it up to a great cause.

Change Yourself First
 We have seen the subjective world rules the objective.
 Change the subject and the object is bound to change.
 Purify yourself and the world is bound to be purified.
 The question is why should I see evil in others?
 I cannot see evil unless I be evil.
 I cannot be miserable unless I am weak.
 Things that used to make me miserable when I was a
child, do not do so now.
 The subject changed so the object was bound to
change.

Change Yourself First
 The man that has practiced control over himself
cannot be acted upon by anything outside, there is
no more slavery for him.
 His mind has become free. For him world is
beautiful.
 The more we grow in love and virtue and
holiness, the more we see love virtue and holiness
outside.
 All condemnations of others really condemns
ourselves.
 Every step that has been really gained in this world
has been gained by love, criticizing can never do

Take the whole Responsibility
on Yourself
 We are responsible for what we and whatever we wish to be, we
have the power to make ourselves.
 If we are now has been the result of our past actions, it
certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be
produced by our present actions, so we have to know how
to act.
 We ought to know that all misery, blow or failure has not been
undeserved, we have paved the way with our own hands.
 Analyze any blow, you have prepared yourself for that, you did
half and the external world did the other half.
 If self and external world are two factor I will not contribute in
the one which is in my keeping, if I get real control blow will
never come.

Take the whole Responsibility
on Yourself
 Nothing makes us work so well at our best and highest as
when all responsibility is thrown upon ourselves.
 How will you behave if I put a little baby in your hands?
 Your whole life will be changed for that moment, you
must become selfless for time being, you will give all your
evil ideas moment responsibility is thrown upon you.
 Your whole character will change.
 With responsibility on our shoulder we shall be at our
highest and best, when we have nobody to grope
towards, no devil to blame upon when we are alone
responsible.
 I am responsible for my fate, I am bringer of good unto
myself, I am bringer of evil.

Take the whole Responsibility on
Yourself
 Taking responsibility of our action is the only solution to the
problem.
 Those that blame others are miserable with helpless
brains, blaming others does not alter their position.
 Therefore, blame none for your faults, stand upon your own
feet and take whole responsibility upon yourself.
 “This failure that I am suffering is of my own doing, and
that very proves that it will be undone by me alone.”
 Take the responsibility and know that you are the creator of
your own destiny.
 All the strength and succor you want is within yourself.
 Make your own future “Let the dead past bury its dead”.

Take the whole Responsibility on
Yourself
The infinite future is before
you , and you must always remember
that each word, thought and deed, lays
up a store for you and that as the bad
thoughts and bad works are ready to
spring upon you like tigers, so also there
is the inspiring hope that the good
thoughts and good deeds are ready with
the power of hundred thousand angels to
defend you always and forever.

How to work
 WORK FOR WORK’S SAKE.
 There are some who are salt of earth who work for
work’s sake and don’t care for name fame or even
going to heaven. They work just because good will
come out of it.
 There are others who do good to poor and help
mankind from still higher motives, because they
believe in doing good and love good.
 The motive of name and fame seldom brings
immediate results, as a rule, they come to us when
we are old and have almost done with life.

How to work
 If a man works without any selfish motive in view , does
he gain anything?
 Yes, he gains the highest.
 Unselfishness is more paying only people do not
have patience to practice it.
 Love, truth and unselfishness are not merely moral
figures of speech but they form our highest ideals.
 Real activity is combined with eternal
calmness, calmness which cannot be ruffled, the
balance of mind which is never disturbed, whatever
happens.
 From our experience of life we know it is the best attitude
for work.

How to work
 How can we work if we do not have the passion
which we generally feel for work?
 The less passion there is, the better we work.
 The calmer we are the better for us, and the more
the amount of work we can do.
 When we let loose our feelings we waste so much
energy, shatter our nerves, disturb our minds and
accomplish very little work.
 Worlds greatest workers have been wonderfully calm
person, nothing could throw them off balance.

How to work
 Inactivity must be avoided by all means. Activity always
means resistance. Resist all evil mental and physical and
when you have succeeded in resisting then will calmness
come.
 “Hate nobody, resist all evil” is easy to say but it is
practically very difficult.
 If you aim at wealth and you know world regards him who
aims at wealth as wicked man, will dare not plunge in
struggle for wealth, but mind will be running after money.
 This hypocrisy will serve no purpose.
 Plunge into the world, and then, after a time, when
you have suffered and enjoyed all that is in it, will
renunciation come, then will calmness come.

How to work
 He who always speculates what awaits him in
future, accomplishes nothing whatsoever.
 The span of life is so short nothing can be accomplished
in it if you go on forecasting and computing results.
 God is the only dispenser of result, leave it to Him to do
all that.
 Every duty is holy, and devotion to duty is highest form of
worship of God.
 By doing the duty well, duty which is in our hands
now, we make yourself stronger and improving our
strength in a manner step by step, we may even reach a
state in which it shall be our privilege to do the most
coveted and honored duties in life and in society.

Work Like a Master
 Work like a master and not like a
slave, work incessantly, but do not do slave’s
work.
 Ninety percent of mankind work like slaves
and the result is misery, its all selfish work.
 Work with freedom, work through love.
 Word love is very difficult to understand, love
never comes until there is freedom.
 Selfish work is slaves work.
 No act of love which does not bring peace

Work Like a Master
 The man who works through freedom and love cares
nothing for result.
 But the slave wants his whipping, the servant wants his
pay.
 A public speaker wants a little applause or a little hissing
and hooting. If he is placed in a corner you will kill him
for he requires it. This is working through slavery.
 “Work for work sake” is easy to say and difficult to attain.
 As work is propelled by his own feelings, senses and own
desire, selfishness.
 He works who has no ulterior motives and nothing to
gain from work can work for work’s sake.

Doing Good to the World
 Our duty to others means helping other;
doing good to world.
 Why should we do good to the world?
Apparently to help the world, but really to help
ourselves.
 We should always try to help the world with the
highest motive in us, but if we consider well,
the world does not require our help at all.
 “All this beautiful world is very good,
because it gives us time and opportunity to
help others.”

 The more intensely you think of well being of
others, the more oblivious of self you become.
 Doing good to others constitute way to reveal self or
self realization.
 Giving something to a man and ask nothing or
want nothing in return.
 Give what you have to give, it will come back to
you, but do not think of that now, it will come back
multiplied thousand fold, but your attention must
not be on that.
 Learn that whole life is giving, that nature will force
you to give, so give willingly.

 You come into life to accumulate, with clenched hands
you want to take. But nature puts a hand on your
throat and makes your hand open. Whether you will it
or not, you have to give.
 None is there but will be compelled to give, actually in
long run you give up everything.
 The Sun is taking up water from the ocean, to return it in
showers.
 River is continually emptying into the ocean and is
continually filling up again.
 Bar not the exit into the ocean, moment you do that
death seizes you.

Wisdom, knowledge, wealth, men, s
trength, prowess, and whatever else
nature gathers and provides us
with, are only for diffusion, when the
moment of need is at hand. We
often forget this fact, put the stamp
of “mine only” upon the entrusted
deposit, and pari passu, we sow the
seed of our ruin.

Unselfishness Will Bring Success
 All outgoing energy following selfish motive will be
frittered away, it will not cause power to you in return.
 But if restrained it will result in development of power.
 Self control produces mighty will and character.
 Foolish men do not know this secret. They want to rule
the mankind.
 Even fool can rule the world if they work and wait.
 Majority of us do not see beyond a few years, just a narrow
circle is our world.
 We do not have patience to look beyond, and thus we
become immoral and wicked.
 This is our weakness and powerlessness.

Unselfishness Will Bring Success
 Selfishness is the Chief Sin, thinking of ourselves
first.
 “I will be the last, I do not care to go to heaven, I will even
go to hell if by doing so I can my brothers.”
 The unselfishness is the test of religion and such
person is dear to God.
 Every successful person has behind him somewhere
tremendous integrity, tremendous sincerity and that’s the
cause of success in life.
 He may not be perfectly unselfish, but he must be tending
towards it.
 Perfectly unselfish :- Christ, Buddha.

Degree of Unselfishness marks
degree of success
Life is ever expanding, contradiction
is death.
The self seeking man who is looking
after his person comforts and
leading a lazy life – there is no room
even in hell.

It is Love that Pays
 Nothing else is necessary but these-

Love, Sincerity and patience.

 Duty is seldom sweet

It is only when love greases its wheels
that it runs smoothly.

Weakness is Death
 Weakness leads to Slavery, Weakness is
death.
 Thousands of microbes surrounding us
cannot harm us until we are weak.
 Thousand of miseries (like microbes) are
surrounding us but cannot approach us
until our mind is weakened.
 Strength is life, weakness is death.

Face the Terrible Face it Boldly
 Monkeys and Dogs chase you when you run, but if you
face them they flee.
 We gain freedom by conquering never by running away.
 Cowards never win victories.
 We have to fight fear and troubles and ignorance if we
expect them to flee before us.
 Do not talk about wickedness and sins in the world, DO
NOT WEAKEN IT MORE.
 Let positive, strong and helpful thoughts enter the brain.
 Lay open to these thoughts and not weakening and
paralyzing ones.

Be Brave
 Whenever darkness comes, assert the reality and
everything adverse must vanish.
 Mountain high though the difficulties appear, terrible and
gloomy though all things seems, they are but delusions.
 Fear not – it is banished, Crush it, and it vanishes, stamp
upon it and it dies.
 Think not how many times you fail, time is infinite, assert
yourself again and again till you succeed.
 Help thyself out by thyself.
 For thou art thy greatest enemy, thou alone art thy
greatest friend.

Heroism
 Veer Bhogya Vasundhara "The Brave Shall
Inherit the Earth" . The earth is enjoyed by
Hero's.
 Give up that hateful malice, that dog like
bickering and barking at one another, and take
your stand on good purpose, right
means, righteous courage, and be brave.
 When you came to this world, world rejoiced
and you cried, now live your life doing such acts
that when you will leave this world, the world
will cry for you and you will leave laughing.

Heroism
 Let the world say what it chooses, I shall tread the
path of duty- know this to be the line of action for a
hero.
 Let people praise you or blame you, let fortune smile
or frown upon you, let your body fall today or after a
Yug- see that you do not deviate from the path of
Truth.
 You will be tossed again and again on the waves of
happiness and misery, prosperity and adversity- but
know them all to be momentary duration.
 Never care for them.

Faith in Oneself
 Let a man go down as low as possible, there must come a
time when out of sheer desperation he will take an upward
curve and learn to have faith in himself.
 It is better for us if we know it from the very first.
 Our first duty is not to hate ourselves, because to advance
we must have faith in ourselves first and then in God. He
who has no faith in himself has no faith on God.
 Whatever you think, that you will be.
 If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be, if you think
yourselves strong, strong you will be.
 The history of world is history of few men who had faith
in themselves.

Imitation is Bad
 As long as I live, so long do I learn.
 Point to note is that when we take anything from others,
we must mould it after our own way. We shall to our stock
what other has to teach, but we must be careful to keep
intact what is essentially our own.
 None can teach another.
 You have to realise truth and work it out for yourself
according to your nature.
 Imitation is not civilisation.
 Cowardly imitation never makes us progress.
 Learn everything that is good from others, but bring it in,
and in your own way absorb it, do not become others.

Imitation is Bad
 The seed is put in the ground and earth, air and
water are placed around it.
 Does it become earth, air or water ?
 No, it becomes a Plant.
 It develops after the law of its own
growth, assimilating air, water and earth and
covert them to plant substance………….and grows
in plant.
 Similarly each must assimilate the spirit of
others and yet preserve his individuality and

What is Ethics
 One idea stands out as the center of all ethical
systems, expressed in various forms, namely, doing good
to others.
 Extreme self abnegation is the center of all morality.
 Perfect self abnegation is abnegation of all selfishness (me
and mine or Ahamkara or Mamta.)
 Quintessence of all ethics is the recognition of non
individuality- that you are part of me and I of you.
 The recognition that in hurting you I hurt myself, in
helping you I help myself.
 The recognition that there cannot possibly be death
for me when you are alive.

Hold On to the Ideal
 That is the great first step- the real desire for ideal.
 Now do you believe you could be what you are today, had
you not mistakes before?
 Bless your mistake then.
 If a man with an ideal makes a thousand mistakes, I am
sure that a man without ideals will make fifty thousand.
 Therefore it better to have an ideal.
 It is thought which is the propelling force in us.
 Fill the mind with the highest thoughts, hear them day
after day, think them month after month.
 Never mind the failures, they are the beauty of life and
poetry of life.

Hold On to the Ideal
 Take up one idea.
 Make that one idea your life- think of it, dream
of it, live on that idea.
 Let the brain, muscle, nerves, every part of
body, be full of that idea, and just leave every
other idea alone.
 This is the way to success, and this the way
great spritual giants are produced.
 Others are mere talking machines.

The Power of Concentration
 The main difference between men and animals is power
of concentration.
 All success in any line of work is because of this.
 We all concentrate upon things we love and we love the
things we concentrate our minds on. E.g. Mother and
Child.
 Trouble with such concentration is that we do not control
the mind, it controls us.
 So along with development of concentration we must
develop power of detachment.
 We must learn only to attach the mind to one things
exclusively, but to detach it at a moment’s notice and
place it on something else.

Develop the Sense of Equality
 Do not pity anyone.
 Look upon all as equal.
 Equality is the sign of the free.
 He who realises that everyone else equally as
perfect as he, and he does not have to exercise
any power, physical, mental or moral, over his
brother men.
 He abandons the idea that there was ever any
man who was lower than himself.
 Then he can talk of equality, not until then.

Be Free
 Learn to feel yourself in other bodies, to know that we
are all one.
 When you have acquired the feeling of non attachment,
there will then be neither good nor evil for you.
 It is very hard thing to understand……………………but
 In misery and happiness the same, in success and
defeat the same- such a mind is nearing that state
of freedom.
 When we can do this, we shall really possess character,
then alone we shall have taken a long step towards
freedom, before that we are mere machines.

Be Free
 Be free, and then have any number of personalities you like.
Then we will play like the actor who comes upon stage and
plays the part of beggar. Contrast him with the actual beggar
walking in the streets.
 The one enjoys his beggary while other is suffering misery
from it.
 What is difference, one is free and other is bound.
 So long as we do not have knowledge of our real nature we are
beggars, jostled about by every force in nature, we cry all over
the world for help, but help never comes to us, we cry to
imaginary beings and yet it never comes.
 But we still hope help will come, wailing and hoping and life
passes, and play goes on.
 Be free.

March On!
 Advance like a HERO.
 Don’t be thwarted by anything. How many days will
this body last, with its happiness and miseries?
 When you have got the human body, then say to
yourself………..I had reached the state of Fearlessness.
 And then as long as body endures, speak unto others
this message of Fearlessness. “Thou art That”

“Arise, awake and stop not till
the goal is reached.”

Personality development

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