Personality development is for two purposes: one is to achieve success in material life and the other is to achieve success in spiritual life. For both purposes it requires to have balanced and developed faculties like physical body with sharp sense organs and working organs, concentration, memory, sensitivity, emotions like love (concern) and enlightened ego, will power, confidence, courage, good discrimination, intelligence and many others.

Power, fame and money or all the three are one set of components of life. Though they are considered harmful to human growth, these are important for getting success in material life. Man can use them for betterment of society. Simplicity, knowledge, and happiness or all the three are another set of components of life and they are important for getting success in spiritual life. These can be achieved only by development of personality. What is personality?

The word personality comes from the Latin word persona which means the ‘mask’. The masks were used in dramas to show different characters, emotions and behaviour. In Sanskrit ‘vyaktitva’ is the word for personality, which means the essence of vyakti (human being). Hence, personality means the essence of character and behaviour of a individual. It has two important dimensions: one is internal and the other is the external.

Internal personality means the essence of character and behaviour of oneself with the internal world and the external personality means essence of character and behavior of oneself with the external world. Both dimensions of personality are inter­connected, inter-related and interdependent on each other.

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Personality development is for two purposes: one is to achieve success in material life and the other is to achieve success in spiritual life. For both purposes it requires to have balanced and developed faculties like physical body with sharp sense organs and working organs, concentration, memory, sensitivity, emotions like love (concern) and enlightened ego, will power, confidence, courage, good discrimination, intelligence and many others.

Power, fame and money or all the three are one set of components of life. Though they are considered harmful to human growth, these are important for getting success in material life. Man can use them for betterment of society. Simplicity, knowledge, and happiness or all the three are another set of components of life and they are important for getting success in spiritual life. These can be achieved only by development of personality. What is personality?

The word personality comes from the Latin word persona which means the ‘mask’. The masks were used in dramas to show different characters, emotions and behaviour. In Sanskrit’ vyaktitva’ is the word for personality, which means the essence of vyakti (human being). Hence, personality means the essence of character and behaviour of a individual. It has two important dimensions: one is internal and the other is the external.

Internal personality means the essence of character and behaviour of oneself with the internal world and the external personality means essence of character and behavior of oneself with the external world. Both dimensions of personality are inter­connected, inter-related and interdependent on each other.

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Dimensions of personality

According to guna there are three types of personalities: tamasika, rajasika and sattvika. Tamasic means lethargic; this type of personality doesn’t like to work; such people are hypo-active and feel inferior. They accumulate or suppress energy. Rajasika means hyper-active; this type of personality always wants some kind of action and feels superior. They spend their energy unnecessarily. Sattvika personality means to be always in a balanced state. This type of personality works hard, tirelessly and will enjoy the work while working and also feels comfortable in no-work situations. They will always conserve their energy for development of personality.

The important point is that out of these three anyone dominates human life and the other two are active to a lesser degree and all these types of personality work on the whole personality of man.

Internal Personality

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Internal personality is as deep as the ocean and as expansive as space. Scientists of the present era have been doing their research on the external world by using their external personality but all the seers in ancient India have done their research using their internal personality. The internal personality of a human being has five bodies’ i.e. physical body, mental body, emotional body, intellectual body and spiritual body. All these bodies are inter-connected, inter-related and inter­dependent with each other.

External Personality

Nobody is an island; an individual is constantly in relation with the external world and always interacts with it i.e. material world, vegetable world, animal world, human being (family, society, nation and humanity) and cosmos. Everything in this universe is an expression of Ishwara (ultimate force). Hence, they are inter-connected, inter-related and inter-dependent with each other.